RESEARCH ARTICLE
An Exploration of Absenteeism among Nursing Students in the context of a South African University
Moreoagae Bertha Randa1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 14
First Page: 285
Last Page: 291
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-14-285
DOI: 10.2174/1874434602014010285
Article History:
Received Date: 11/08/2020Revision Received Date: 09/11/2020
Acceptance Date: 11/11/2020
Electronic publication date: 18/12/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Absenteeism among university and college students is a global challenge. Not only does absenteeism result in inadequate learning, but it also disrupts the way in which classes are conducted.
Objective:
The study sought to explore and understand the reasons for absenteeism from the perspectives of the nursing students in the context of a South African University.
Methods:
The study used an explorative qualitative design to conduct four focus group discussions with undergraduate nursing students. Tesch’s method of data analysis was followed.
Results:
One theme and four sub-themes emerged, such as the negative attitudes of lecturers, poor guidance and lack of prompt feedback from lecturers, lack of commitment from lecturers and classes starting late, and inability of the students to cope with the workload.
Conclusion:
The study revealed that the main reasons for the students’ absenteeism from scheduled learning experiences were related to the lecturers’ behaviour and practices. The poor lecturer-student relationship discouraged the students from attending classes.
