Effect of Class Attendance of Medical Students' Tests Performance

Objectives: To study the effect of class attendance of medical students on performance in tests. Study design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Place of Study: Lahore Medical & Dental College (LMDC), Lahore. . Duration of study: two weeks in January, 2012 . Material and method: Secondary Data was obtained from the end of session yearly record on attendance and test scores in the subject of Community Medicine Study Population: All 72, 4th year MBBS students Variables: Age, Gender, Class Attendance & Test Scores were taken. Data was entered and cleaned in SPSS 19 statistical package. Data was presented in the form of tables and graphs. Statistics used: Descriptive statistics was used in the forms of numbers and percentages. Data was further analyzed using Pearson Correlation and chi square tests of significance (X-2). The p value <= 0.05 was used as the cut off point for statistical significance. Results: The present study was conducted with 4th year MBBS students, among whom 39(54%) were males and 33(46%) were females. All students were between the age group of 22-24 year. The class attendances of students were grouped into two categories i.e., <75% and >= 75%, also the test score were grouped into two categories i.e., < 50% (fail) and >= 50% (pass). Gender had a statistically significant bearing on class attendance but it had no effect on test scores. Conclusion: There is a statistically significant association between attendance and test scores (p=<0.001). There is a positive correlation between attendance and test scores r = 0.05). Male students had lower attendance (p=0.04) and test scores than the female students.