title: In-group and role identity influences on the initiation and maintenance of students' voluntary attendance at peer study sessions for statistics.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although class attendance is linked to academic performance, questions remain about what determines students' decisions to attend or miss class.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In addition to the constructs of a common decision-making model, the theory of planned behaviour, the present study examined the influence of student role identity and university student (in-group) identification for predicting both the initiation and maintenance of students' attendance at voluntary peer-assisted study sessions in a statistics subject.
  
  
  METHODS
  University students enrolled in a statistics subject were invited to complete a questionnaire at two time points across the academic semester. A total of 79 university students completed questionnaires at the first data collection point, with 46 students completing the questionnaire at the second data collection point.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twice during the semester, students' attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, student role identity, in-group identification, and intention to attend study sessions were assessed via on-line questionnaires. Objective measures of class attendance records for each half-semester (or 'term') were obtained.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Across both terms, students' attitudes predicted their attendance intentions, with intentions predicting class attendance. Earlier in the semester, in addition to perceived behavioural control, both student role identity and in-group identification predicted students' attendance intentions, with only role identity influencing intentions later in the semester.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings highlight the possible chronology that different identity influences have in determining students' initial and maintained attendance at voluntary sessions designed to facilitate their learning.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. km.white@qut.edu.au
authors.forename: Katherine M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Erin L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Kyra
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hamilton
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007389:Internal-External Control; D009042:Motivation; D010379:Peer Group; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011793:Queensland; D012380:Role; D012933:Social Identification; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000193:education*; D013332:Student Dropouts / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires