Understanding the Role of Student Wellbeing in Chronic Absenteeism

• In Event: Unpacking The Role of Student Health Challenges in Chronic Absenteeism

Abstract

Background:  

Chronic absenteeism, missing over 10% of the school year, has steeply increased since the COVID-19 pandemic (Dee, 2023). Previous studies have linked transportation, socioeconomic status, physical health ailments, and dispositions toward schools as leading predictors of chronic absenteeism (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012; Burdick-Will et al., 2019; Gottfried, 2019), which form what Singer et al. (2021) refer to as the ecology of chronic absenteeism. However, much less scholarship has centered on student wellbeing as a driver of absenteeism, particularly in the post-pandemic era wherein a notable rise in absenteeism has coincided with declines in student wellbeing (Çetinkaya & Bulut, 2023; Yang, 2023).   

Wellbeing is operationalized in different ways but is commonly understood as a multidimensional construct (Das et al., 2020), which is shaped by mental health difficulties and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). Declining wellbeing may partially explain the recent uptick in absenteeism, as students experiencing mental health difficulties, which have risen since the pandemic, are more likely to disengage from school (Çetinkaya & Bulut, 2023). Additionally, the pandemic may have posed new stress for adolescents due to increased racial discrimination (Yang, 2023) and challenges associated with remote learning (Élix et al., 2023). To better understand these connections, more research is needed, which would shed light on levers stakeholders can pull to redress high rates of absenteeism.  

Research Questions:  

Therefore, the present proposal seeks to explore the role of wellbeing in absenteeism, specifically investigating how any such role has shifted since the pandemic. To do so, we explore the following research questions: 

1. To what extent are wellbeing variables associated with chronic absenteeism annually?


2. How have these associations changed since the return to in-person learning in the years after COVID-19? 

Data and Methods: 

To address our research questions, we draw from three data sources forming a 10-year panel (2014-2023). First, we use school-level attendance data provided by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement in Georgia for chronic absenteeism. Secondly, we use the Georgia School Health Survey (GSHS), which gathers data on students’ mental health difficulties and STBs. Finally, we include data from the Georgia Department of Education to control for the contextual factors. 

We first fit separate ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions for each year to descriptively explore the relationship between absenteeism and wellbeing over time. Then, we add school fixed effects to consider within-school characteristics that might shape the associations between absenteeism and wellbeing. We also interact mental health and STBs with an indicator of pre- (2014-2019), during (2020), and post-pandemic (2021-2023) periods to compare the associations across these different stages of COVID-19. 

Preliminary Findings:  

OLS regressions conducted by year suggest that mental health and STBs are not significantly correlated with chronic absenteeism across the panel. However, when we add a school fixed effect term and interact our COVID-19 indicators with the wellbeing variables, we find that the association between absenteeism and STBs is more pronounced compared to pre-COVID years (b=7.49, p<0.01). Mental health was not significantly associated with chronic absenteeism before 2020 and remains nonsignificant.  

 

 

Authors

• Su Yon Choi, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Jerome Graham, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author