Today is the first day of fall semester classes and as such, I am promoted to ask, are college students less likely to attend class these days? Have professors noticed a decline in attendance in their classes in recent years? According to an article by the Contra Costa Times, many professors say yes, student attendance does seem to be down in the last couple of years:

At UC Berkeley and elsewhere, faculty members have noticed declining attendance in their classes the past year or two. Some professors have resorted to high-tech roll-taking methods to keep students in their seats, while others say the trend does not bother them. . . . Several professors noted that the decline corresponded closely with the rise in course materials available on the Web, while others said too many instructors are, well, boring. . . .

To hear students talk about it, one would think nobody ever misses class. Fourth-year UC Berkeley literature major Natalie Pham-Gia, 21, said she cannot imagine relying on the Internet for a college education. “I hope it doesn’t get to a point where it’s all done through the computer,” Pham-Gia said. “I think that’s really lonely and not very exciting.” Freshman Fei Yang also said he came to the Berkeley campus to sit in a classroom.

“When you go to class, you just learn better,” said Yang, 17. “Technology will never be able to replicate human interaction.”

Personally, in my large lecture class (225 students) in which I do not require attendance, I have not really noticed a sharp decline in attendance in recent years, perhaps because it tends to be relatively low already (around 55%-70% of students attend on any given day after about the first month of classes). The larger question is, assuming that low attendance is a problem, what should be done about it?

Like most other issues, the answer is probably somewhere in between enforcement and incentive. On the one hand, professors should make a good faith effort to make their classes as interactive and interesting as possible. They don’t have to resort to high-tech gimmicks or take on a persona that is entirely out of their own character, but as most experts will tell you, the traditional one-way lecturing method isn’t the best form of instruction any longer.

On the other hand, I personally don’t believe that, at least in a large lecture class, that students should be mandated to attend. I feel that they should be treated as adults and given the opportunity to make their own choice -- but also as adults, to live with the consequences of their choice.