Abstract

Student attendance in higher education, particularly at lectures, is a topic that researchers have largely neglected, other than in relatively small scale studies. This paper reviews university attendance policies based on documentary research in university web sites. While there are acknowledged methodological limitations to this approach, some universities are beginning to implement automated recording of student attendance in UK higher education and others are debating the merits of doing so. The paper argues that while the practice of monitoring is not without merit, there are risks to its adoption including the proletarianisation of the student body, and a threat to academic freedom from the introduction of a metric that has little to do with student learning.