The role of absenteeism in the prediction of math achievement on the basis of self-concept and motivation: TIMSS 2015 in Serbia

This study examines how students? absenteeism moderates the relationship of math self-concept and motivation to learn math on one side and the achievement in the TIMSS 2015 math test on the other. The stratified random sample consists of 4036 fourth grade pupils from 160 primary schools in Serbia. Separate regression models were made for four levels of frequency of students? absenteeism. The results show that self-concept makes a positive contribution to the prediction of achievement, and motivation a negative one. Additionally, with the increase of absenteeism the importance of self-concept drops and that of motivation grows. The analysis of variance confirmed that along with the increase of absenteeism, students express lower levels of self-concept, while the level of motivation does not change. The most important conclusion is that regular class attendance contributes to the students? math self-concept and consequential achievement by developing their experiences of success in math. The usefulness of the motivation scale for predicting math test performance is discussed.