Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching

The UoB Check In App – Attendance and Engagement in Higher Education 

In January 2024 the University of Bristol introduced an attendance ‘Check-In’ App for in person teaching. Rationale behind the introduction were:

• The tightening of Visa regulations means the university must provide attendance data for international students.
• Access to attendance data would allow the university to monitor students who do not attend classes, meaning they can provide wellbeing and academic support
• It was hypothesised that introducing a Check-In app could increase attendance at in person teaching

On the face of it, asking students to tick a box in an app when they’ve arrived at a class is a very small change, so why has there been such varied reception, and how does it actually resolve any of the issues of attendance and engagement?

Does Attendance Equal Engagement?

Emphasising the importance of attendance to students is incredibly important. Empirical research into student attendance and outcomes reflects that attendance improves attainment, and the university promoting the benefits of attendance to students is completely justified. However, the question here is whether attendance is the same as students engaging with and participating in their classes. Viewing attendance as paramount ignores the complexities of some students’ lives. We can illustrate this with an example:

Pretend we have two students, we’ll call them Jack and Jill. 

Jack works to support himself at University, and due to his shift patterns he has to miss one lecture and one seminar a week. To catch up, he asks a classmate for the seminar notes, liaises with his seminar tutor, and watches back the lecture recording. He attends the rest of his teaching.

Jill however hates her in person teaching, and subverts the check in app by walking past her lectures and lab buildings on her way around campus. She has worked out which areas of Senate House and the University gym allow her to check in to her teaching. She also lives near campus, so is usually close to the check in radius. Sometimes she catches up and sometimes she attends, but not always. 

Out of these two students, the Check In App would flag Jack as having lower attendance. As he has to miss the same classes every week, he could receive emails and mandatory response requests from the University, despite his far more diligent approach than Jill, who in the eyes of the Check In App, is a model student. 

This is included to highlight the different realities facing students, and the importance of appreciating different university experiences. A possible step forward here is to place more emphasis on encouraging students to attend in person classes, using different methods, and conducting teaching that students want to attend. One of the Education Development Project themes at the University of Bristol is Active Learning. This is a method of teaching that prioritises students being an actor in their education, taking part in group work, class discussions and completing activities, rather than being passive as they are in a traditional lecture. By creating teaching environments that students want to be in, we can incentivise attendance and engagement, whilst improving student experience of their education. Promoting this would also help negate one complaint about the Check-In app from students, as some find it too invasive, and felt as if they were being forced to attend certain classes. This frames the importance of communication between the university and students, and demonstrating that the focus is engagement and student welfare, not policing. 

Moving Forward

It is not lost on me that this is an incredibly difficult issue for the university. The UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration) mandates that attendance must be recorded, and universities must report if a student is breaching their Visa by non-attendance. Also as a student, seeing the university actively take steps to improve student wellbeing is very encouraging. Almost any method used to record attendance could be subverted; such as absent students asking friends to add their names to paper registers, which in a class of a substantial size will go unnoticed. Implementing new methods carries risks, the Check-In app had some technical issues in TB1 of the 2024/25 academic year, which have now been resolved. 

So, where can we go from here? As aforementioned, focusing on teaching in a way that makes students want to be in the classroom, such as active learning, is a possibility with a lot of potential. Also, pushing students to engage can be achieved by showing its value in assessments. I have taken modules with assignments that deliberately require content from multiple weeks. A personal favourite from my second year was a 25% summative, that was made up of weekly short answers to a question relating to the essential readings. This ensured that all students had completed the pre-seminar work, wanted to attend the seminar to discuss it, and built the 25% summative gradually, easing the end of term rush to meet multiple deadlines. Attendance and engagement could also be considered a grade in itself, such as a small summative percentage being graded on this. 

To conclude, considering how attendance and engagement can work together, and changes to teaching and assessment structure that encourage engagement can be future goals to improve student experience and engagement.