Marketing Research on Reasons for Missing Lectures and Tutorial Classes

This report investigates the reasons why students miss tutorial classes and lectures at Victoria University Sydney Campus. It includes data analysis, summary statistics, opinions of students, and correlation between attending lectures and importance of attending lectures.

Table of Contents
REPORT ON MARKETING RESEARCH............................................................................................................1
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................................1
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Data analysis................................................................................................................................................3
Results and discussion.................................................................................................................................3
Summary statistics of courses enrolled (Q1)...........................................................................................3
Summary Statistics......................................................................................................................3
Summary statistics of semester of students............................................................................................5
Summary Statistics.................................................................................................................5
Opinions of the students on attending lectures......................................................................................6
Summary Statistics.................................................................................................................6
Failure to attend lectures........................................................................................................................7
Summary Statistics.................................................................................................................7
Importance of lecture attendance...........................................................................................................8
Summary Statistics.................................................................................................................9
Correlation between attending lectures (Q3) and importance of attending lectures (Q8)....................10
Correlation between missing lectures (Q4) and importance of attending lectures (Q8).......................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12

REPORT ON MARKETING RESEARCH
Abstract
This research report aims at investigating the main reason why students at Victoria University
Sydney Campus do miss tutorial classes and lectures.
Executive summary
The research report illustrates the necessary conditions to why students miss or what motivates
them towards attending lectures and tutorial classes at Victoria University, Sydney Campus. 88
students including both males and females have been randomly selected based on the probability
of them influencing the aims of achieving the objective of the research. The respondents
responded to questionnaire questions which were present at Victoria University site. It was found
out that students do not attend classes due to various reasons but majorly early morning classes
were unattended. Other students also did not attend because of commitment of work and family.
Quantitative test have also been carried out to enable analysis of both males and females towards
attending classes. For this research, findings lie upon scarce of questions and respondents and
therefore there are many factors which ought to be investigated to provide better and accurate
results.
Introduction
Education has contributed positively to mankind by changing their attitudes, mindset and how
they view life. It is also known that in the act of acquiring knowledge either at school or college

lectures and tutorial classes should be attended. Tutorial class of any unit is vital for each and
every student as it develops and improves how they perform academically. Despite the fact that
attending lectures contributes to students performance positively, there are many cases where
students miss lectures and tutorial classes. The main aim of this project is to investigate the
reasons to why students do not attend lectures and how this later on affects their overall career
development and person growth. Therefore university or school administrations are advised to
take this matter very strict to avoid the name and popularity of the university from being
destroyed. It not only destroys the name and popularity of the college but also contributes to
personal growth and civilization of any society.
Data analysis
The data collected in this research are quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative data for this
project was analyzed by finding means, standard deviation, medians, mode and many more using
excel software. In addition to the qualitative data a content analysis technique was applied where
by the qualitative data was coded. The results and discussion of the data analysis have been
conducted below.
Results and discussion
Summary statistics of courses enrolled (Q1)
Summary Statistics
Statistic Valu
e
Sample Size 88
Mean 4.98

Statistic Valu
e
9
Standard
Deviation
2.94
2
Minimum 0
Q1
4.00
0
Median 4.00
0
Q3
9.00
0
Maximum 9

Students enrolled in unit 4 were the dominant respondent group (N=37) of the current survey,
unit 9 had 26 respondents and its only one student who did not specify the course that he or she
enrolled in.
Summary statistics of semester of students
Summary Statistics
Statistic Valu
e
Sample Size 88
Mean 2.71
6
Standard
Deviation
1.63
3
Minimum 1
Q1
1.00
0
Median 2.00
0
Q3
4.00
0
Maximum 5

Majority of the respondents students were found to be from 1 ( N=32), followed by students of 5
(N=21) rest of the students were from other semesters.
Opinions of the students on attending lectures
Summary Statistics
Statistic Valu
e
Sample Size 88
Mean 0.54
5
Standard
Deviation
0.62
3
Minimum 0
Q1
0.00
0
Median 0.50
0

Statistic Valu
e
Q3
1.00
0
Maximum
Students were very much eager in attending classes especially were very much apprehensive to
miss any class. Regarding the reasons behind the attending lectures, the distribution was highly
right skewed towards strongly agree and agree response of the students.
Failure to attend lectures
Summary Statistics
Statistic Valu
e
Sample Size 88

Statistic Valu
e
Mean 2.29
5
Standard
Deviation
1.16
6
Minimum 1
Q1
1.00
0
Median 2.00
0
Q3
3.00
0
Maximum 5

Failure to attend lectures due to early morning classes and personal reasons were the two main
reasons. The distribution was highly skewed towards likely and very likely response of the
students.
Importance of lecture attendance
Summary Statistics
Statistic Valu
e
Sample Size 88
Mean 3.85
2
Standard
Deviation
0.89
1
Minimum 1
Q1
4.00
0
Median 4.00
0

Statistic Valu
e
Q3
4.00
0
Maximum 5
Importance of lectures attendance in helping to achieve the academic results was
assessed on a scale of 10 and the distribution of opinions was found to be negatively
skewed. Majority of the opinions considered the importance lecture as very high in
achieving good academic scores. Females were noted to have more positive view
about the impact compared to male students.
Correlation between attending lectures (Q3) and importance of attending
lectures (Q8)
General views of the students (Q3) and impact of lecture attendance in helping to
achieve the academic results (Q8) were hypothesized to be independent. The claim

was tested at 5% level of significance and no significant correlation (r=0.118) was
observed between the variables. Hence, the claim of the null hypothesis could not be
rejected (Koo and Li, 2016). General views of the students and opinions about
importance of lecture classes about scoring good marks in exam were independent.
Correlation between missing lectures (Q4) and importance of attending
lectures (Q8)
Grounds on which students were abstaining from lectures classes (Q4) and impact of
lecture attendance in helping to achieve the academic results (Q8) were hypothesized
to be independent. The claim was tested at 5% level of significance and no significant
correlation (r=0.166) was observed. Hence, the claim of the null hypothesis could not
be rejected. Reasons of absence from classes and opinions about importance of
lecture classes about scoring good marks in exams were found to be independent
(Nikolic et al, 2012).
Conclusion
Using the 88 respondents for both males and females, conclusion can be made for this
project;
 Most students were concerned about missing lectures
 The main reason towards students failing to attend tutorial classes were due to
early morning classes and personal issues such as work and family
commitment.

References
Nikolić, D; Muresan, RC; Feng, W; Singer, W (2012). "Scaled correlation
analysis: a better way to compute a cross-correlogram". European
Journal of Neuroscience: 1–21. doi:10.1111/j.1460-
9568.2011.07987.x.
Koo, T.K. and Li, M.Y., 2016. A guideline of selecting and reporting
intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research. Journal of
chiropractic medicine, 15(2), pp.155-163.