University attendance/engagement - it sounds pretty dire

[Suffolker]

Did anyone see this article last week in the Guardian?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/28/i-see-little-point-uk-university-students-on-why-attendance-has-plummeted

It makes for pretty grim reading, and talking to a friend who works at our local university, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration of the current level of attendance and engagement by undergraduates. It sounds very different to how I remember my university days in the 1990s (although I appreciate I’m very much looking through rose-tinted glasses).

I’ve heard from another friend whose daughter is just completing her first year that lots of students are dropping out and are unhappy. Attendance at lectures is very much seen as optional and there is very little by the way of any contact time with staff. Registration codes are apparently shared by WhatsApp so the students can ‘register’ for classes but not actually attend.

It all sounds very isolating, and really makes me question whether all the expense of going (emotional as well as financial) makes it worthwhile. Interested to hear of others’ thoughts and whether it reflects your experience.

Both mine are currently at uni - one just done his finals, one having just completed her first year at a second attempt.

I think it varies a lot from uni to uni and course to course.

I think some dates back to covid - the current students are the ones that either started uni at the peak of covid, and endured lockdowns whilst there, or spent much of their GSCEs/A levels stuck in their bedrooms 'attending' lessons/lectures. This therefore seems a 'normal' way to work. And many are still suffering the fallout from lockdowns in terms of MH, loss of independence and a lack of opportunity to grow up.

Some unis have kept an online element to teaching - for some it is optional to attend lectures in person or watch online. Most record lectures anyway, supposedly to help with revision etc or if ill. But a lot of students don't bother going in the first place.

Contact hours on some courses are ridiculous - 8 - 10 hours a week.
Loans haven't kept up with the cost of living - either in terms of when parents have to start contributing (which many struggle to do with increased outgoings), or in terms of the amount given as a loan. I think I saw that the max loan in England is about £2k short of what it should be if it had kept up with inflation. his means that many students are having to work a lot of shifts just to pay their way through uni. If lectures are moved around (certainly mine get a new timetable twice a year), that makes jobs harder to fit in.

It also seems very difficult to get any contact with lecturers for advice, feedback, support. Even 'personal tutors' (or whatever they are called these days) seem to be unreachable in many instances. I don't think my son has ever met his having been at uni for 4 years. That said I know that he has found some of his lecturers approachable and helpful.

I was a mature student at uni in the 80s and lecturers took a register. Our course leader took marks off if you missed a seminar/ workshop. We attended everything. As my son said to me when he was doing a Masters ‘you care about it more when you are paying for it yourself’.

Many of DD's modules have a minimum attendance. You get docked % if you miss a certain amount. DD only used catch up lectures when ill, and then it is very useful. Seminars can't be caught up that way, you have to get notes from friends. It must be very university and subject dependent.

DH is a Professor towards the end of his career. They like to lay in bed in their Jim jams and not have to get up and have online lectures. He offered a revision class last week and hardly any turned up. His course is a huge amount of contact hours and lab work so they do actually have to attend but some stuff is done online. The dept I worked in was in social sciences not the right science as DH used to joke.

I have retired early thank F. Higher education is in a state due to funding, targets and all sorts but the students since stuff went online well it’s not helped really.

@Seeline thats down to the individual lecturer, mine does stuff like take calls at the weekend from his students when it’s final year project time. I mean it’s a subject where with some stuff if it’s wrong people could die, the lab could get blown up or hideous things creep out of flume cupboards and cause serious injury/death. With my subject I suppose a large book could have crushed a toe.

True. It's barely worth while having brick unis at all.

I'm a lecturer and it's getting worse and worse, especially since covid.
On the one hand students are working zero hours contract jobs to try and keep afloat and have to go to work whenever asked or they just don't get offered any more shifts. I totally understand their situation and try to accommodate them as best I can.
On the other hand there's students who don't want to come in because they're 'anxious', and if they do come in they can't possibly be expected to speak or engage in any way. There's lots of them and I think this is possibly covid-created. These are people who've chosen to do a degree which leads to careers dealing with challenging people in often very distressing situations - not sure how they think they'll cope.
Then there's the odd ones we've always had who just can't seem to get their back off the bed to come in...
We've also got some incredibly dedicated and hard-working students who are a joy to teach.
I think we need to have a fundamental look at how we do HE. If students want to study online they should be able to do that - with courses designed for online study and loans available to fund it (as an alternative to traditional study, not a replacement - if I'd been compelled to study online I would never have got a degree, I need that classroom experience).
What we have at the moment is courses designed for in person delivery, with students attempting to complete them using lecture notes / classroom capture videos etc without having to actually turn up. It's a recipe for disaster,

I graduated in 2019 as a mature student.

The lectures where a post-grad student scanned your ID card on the way in were always the most heavily attended. I guess logging on with a code isn't the same.

I am so glad I only teach post-graduates. Most have already had some work experience and they often hold down jobs and have families but they still show up and seem motivated to be there.

It is a two-way process though.

My DD is very diligent - always has been, and will show up for lectures. She has turned up and the lecturer hasn't, with no warning, apology etc. When students live off-campus, and have to make the effort/pay for a bus to go to the 1 hour lecture they have that day, and the lecturer can't be bothered, you can understand why some students are less keen to make the effort.
@ViciousCurrentBun - good to hear your personal tutor makes themselves available. Many don't.

DC has just finished their 1st year at uni. All lectures attended in person (unless they clashed with sports fixtures) but they are all available online afterwards so catch up is ok.

However, they told me they nearly always go over the video lecture again when sorting their notes as a number of the staff do not have English as their first language - and the videos have subtitles.

It's a tough subject at a prestigious university, and I guess they prioritise getting lecturers at the top of their game. Which the students appreciate, but they do often have to work harder to physically understand what's going on!

Yes I totally get that students are suffering the after-effects (and ongoing effects) of Covid, plus the economic realities of having to balance with and study. Maybe online is the answer for some (and I would have thought the Open University is ideally placed to offer this). I just think they will be missing out on so much if they never get to mix (or even meet) with other students on their course. If mental heath is such a big issue, hiding away in their rooms and studying everything remotely seems like the worst possible option.

I agree @Suffolker that turning up and studying is the best option, and we're storing up trouble for the future if people are able to just withdraw from society because they find it hard.
I do think though, that for some students online may be best and that should be available to them on the same terms as in-person study. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) you can't access student finance for OU degrees.

My daughter has just finished uni this year.

Her course was super strict with attendance - attendance below a certain % without a reasonable explanation could result in them being removed from the course.

I know from DD that other courses at the same uni weren’t so strict. One of her friends hasn’t attended a single lecture or seminar in 3 years and just uses the online information slides. He’s graduated with a 2-1.

DD’s first year was in 2020 (having had 6 months of not being in school, then the whole A level grades fiasco meaning she lost her original place, housing, etc, and ended up having to do a foundation year) and was 100% online learning. Some of her second year as well. Lots of them got used to online learning I guess and if the lecturers running the courses aren’t bothered about attendance and videoed lectures are provided online, then attendance is going to be low.

Some of her lecturers have been fab with feedback and getting back to her with answers to questions. Others haven’t, some haven’t even turned up for their own lectures

The bigger question is how on earth are they going to cope with the world of work. My 27 year old recruits grads. She is also the office mental health mentor. The recent grads are not passing probation. Not even with a LOT of support. They can't manage the stress of deadlines or regular office attendance, and they only have a 2/5 mandatory office attendance. When WFH they don't meet expectations. Miss calls and meetings. These are top grad's too. It's a worry.

I've done one degree in person and two via distance learning, and I see no advantage in attending lectures vs watching recordings online.

We've stopped recording lectures as it was a disaster. They come in week 1, then decide to watch week 2 online, but don't and so then don't come to week 3 and then before you know it it's week 6 and they haven't engaged at all.

It's a little better without the recordings, but not much.

I had two final year groups this year - one of them had near 100% attendance every week, even the week they had an exam in another module that afternoon. The other group, in the second half of the semester only the international students came (because they have to, because universities are the Home Office now) so I regularly had attendance well under 50%.

I am not sure attendance issues are that new at university. I remember one lecture (1980's) where there were only 4 out of a cohort of 70 present at the lecture and having to listen instead of the timetabled lecture to a rant about how ungrateful the students were. He was a diabolical lecturer and the reason that he even got 4 in his audience was that three of us were having tutorials with him that week and the other was a student who prided himself of never having missed a lecture in the course.

People complain about the contact hours but why would unis want to increase contact hours when students don't attend the hours they do have timetabled anyway? These days many students need to work to survive. 8-10 hours contact is reasonable for an arts subject as the students do need time to actually do the reading and tasks before their seminars. On some English degrees the reading is four books a week or more!

I think it depends on the course @LordSnot if you're attending a lecture with 200 others where the lecturer shuffles in, talks for an hour and then shuffles out I can see the benefit of viewing online, with a coffee and the option to work through it in sections.
If, however, the cohort is much smaller (mine tend to be 30-35 students) and involve questions, discussion and debate rather than just me wittering on, then if you're not actually there you miss out on the chance to engage.

It seems there is a big variation between different courses (even tutors) and different institutions. It would be helpful if there was an easy way to find out which were better than others. Overall it does sound very much as though engagement has taken quite a nosedive in the past few years though, which I think makes for a very different experience and probably not a very happy one for many students.

and the lecturer can't be bothered,

How do you know that? We lecturers are human & get ill, for example. There may have been a personal issue which is none of your DC's business.

In other jobs, people can just take the day off - I've worked through illness & extreme pain, dominant hand out of action in a sling, whatever - I've turned up.

I hold office hours, I invite students to come for personal tutorials, but ... tumbleweed. And then they drop out or don't do well - there IS a connection between a student's attendance & engagement, and learning.

Indeed!

I assume a minimum of 3 hours of independent work (reading) for every hour of face to face class work. My course offers around 12 -15 hours pw face to face, so they're doing a 40 hour week - if they do the reading & preparation (most of them cut corners or don't do it).

Sure they're human, and there may be very valid reasons for not turning up to a lecture. But I wouldn't get away with just not turning up for work. I would need to let my manager know, and either I or they would arrange cover, or contact people who I had meetings with that I would need to re-arrange.
For students to turn up at a lecture with no word from anyone that the lecturer won't be there sounds like not bothering to me. Surely in this day and age an email/text/message on the VLE portal could be organised?

What alternative support do you put in place for students with disabilities if you don't record lectures?