Effect of student attendance on performance: Comment on Lamdin

Evidence that student attendance has a positive and significant effect on student performance was reported by Lamdin (1996). Our comment suggests that Lamdin's results are biased because of his failure to include measures of student innate ability and competition in the explanation of student performance. When these two variables are taken into account, student attendance is shown to be insignificant in terms of its effect on student performance. Thus, policies designed to increase student attendance may result in an inappropriate use of education resources.