Naeem Yaqoob, Saeed Akram Bhatti, Ali Zulqernain.
Class attendance as a marker of performance in annual exams for pre-clinical medical students.
Ann King Edward Med Uni Jan ;21(2):89-94.

Objective: To assess the importance of class attendance of preclinical medical students by comparing it with their results in annual university examination. Study Design: A cross sectional analytical study. Methodology: All (92) preclinical students of 2nd year MBBS passing the First Professional Part-II in first attempt were included in the study. Actual attendance in Physiology classes of each student during the 2nd year MBBS was entered as percentage and compared with percentage total cumulative marks of same students in their 1st professional Part – II examination conducted by the University. The same comparison was also made using the admission attendance (wherein leave period was excluded from attendance calculation) instead of Actual attendance. Data maintained by Physiology Department was entered and analysed by SPSS 21. Descriptive statistics in the form of numbers and percentages were used and further analyzed using Pearson Correlation, Linear regression and T Test. The p value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: Out of total 92 students 73 (79.3%) were females and 19 (20.7%) males. All students were within the age group of 19 – 24 years, mean age being 21.6 years. Mean Actual attendance in Physiology was 91.67 (Range = 72 – 100, Median = 93.25). Mean admission attendance in Physiology was 93.17 (Range = 78 – 100, Median = 94.11). Percentage marks in annual exam had a mean of 70.83 (Range = 57 – 84, Median = 70.92). Actual class attendance in percentage was directly assessed against the percentage marks obtained in annual exam for each student. The class attendance in Physiology was statistically significantly related to the overall marks in the final exam (p = 0.01). Difference was noted amongst different genders in class attendance (Mean 87.43 for Males Vs 92.77 for Females) but not in the annual exam marks (Mean 70.80 for Males Vs 70.96 for Females). Conclusion: In preclinical years in a medical college regular class attendance has statistically significant but moderate relationship with the academic performance in professional examination. Male students show a tendency to improve their performance in the annual examination as compared to female students despite having a lower attendance.

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