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The effect of employment on attendance: A response to ‘Identifying and understanding the drivers of student engagement’

Document Cited in Related
Published date01 February 2025
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221148067
AuthorChris Hanretty
Date01 February 2025
https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221148067
Politics
2025, Vol. 45(1) 95 –104
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/02633957221148067
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
The effect of employment on
attendance: A response to
‘Identifying and understanding
the drivers of student
engagement’
Chris Hanretty
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Abstract
I challenge Strong’s findings that student employment is not related to attendance. I argue that the
original analysis is guilty of controlling for a post-treatment variable. As a result, the coefficients
in the regression model do not show how employment causes changes in attendance. I show that
employment likely has a negative effect on attendance even given severe confounding. Academics
should, if asked, tell students that their attendance will likely suffer the more paid work they do.
Keywords
attendance, employment, regression
Received: 13th September 2022; Accepted: 6th October 2022
Introduction
All of us face competing demands on our time. The same is true of university students.
Some of these competing demands come from freely chosen activities: some students
may be less able to spend time on the study because they are spending more time on var-
sity volleyball or on amateur dramatics. Other competing demands spring from necessity:
some students may be less able to spend time studying because they are working for
money or caring for a dependent family member. Paid employment is a particularly
important external commitment. Between 70% and 80% of full-time students work while
studying (Dennis et al., 2018; Warrell, 2015).1 Given this, it is important to know whether
paid work has positive or negative effects on how well students do at university. This can
Corresponding author:
Chris Hanretty, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham TW20 0EX, UK.
Email: Chris.Hanretty@rhul.ac.uk
1148067POL0010.1177/02633957221148067PoliticsHanretty
research-article2023
Learning and Teaching in Politics
and International Studies

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