What Works to Reduce Student Absenteeism? A Systematic Review

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: New Research on Attendance, Truancy, and Absenteeism (Table 11)

Abstract

As states and districts leaders take steps to mitigate chronic absenteeism, they are faced with a plethora of interventions that vary in costs and effectiveness. For policymakers deciding which intervention to implement, they need information not only about whether a given intervention “works,” but also whether the intervention will work for the specific context under which their schools operate. The lack of such information in current compendiums may render the existing chronic absenteeism resources to be of limited utility. The purpose of our study is to bridge the research-to-practice gap by conducting a practitioner-oriented systematic review that estimates the potential effect sizes of various interventions and identifies the features of interventions that are associated with larger effect sizes.

Authors

• Michael A. Gottfried, University of Pennsylvania

• Vi-Nhuan Le, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Philip Kim, University of Pennsylvania