the relationship between erciyes, selçuk, and akdeniz medical school third-year students’ learning approaches and their nonattendance attitude and tendencies

Background: non-attendance is an undesirable student behavior. although some studies about the factors for non-attendance behavior have been carried out at medical schools, the learning approach of a student has not been studied and it can also be a factor for non-attendance. we aimed to assess the relationship between learning approaches and non-attendance attitude and tendency. methods: this is a correlational study. 644 students registered in three medical schools were enrolled. data were collected during may 2015. “the revised two factor learning approach scale”, “non-attendance attitude scale” and “non-attendance tendency scale” were used as data collection tools. results: out of 478 studied students, 10.3% mentioned that they never missed theoretical classes and 71.3% mentioned that they never missed practical classes. sleeplessness was the most common reason for non-attendance. 45.6% of all students thought that non-attendance affected student success. the students’ mean score for deep learning was 29.5±6.1 and for superficial learning was 30.5±5.6. the mean score for non-attendance attitude scale was 54.4±12.8 and from non-attendance tendency scale was 90.5±19.6. conclusion: learning approach is an effective factor for attendance. as deep learning approach is adopted, tendency for non-attendance decreases and the attitude becomes positive.