%0 Journal Article
%T Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs
%A Carly D. Robinson
%A Eric Dearing
%A Monica G. Lee
%A Todd Rogers
%J American Educational Research Journal
%@ 1935-1011
%D 2018
%R 10.3102/0002831218772274
%X Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts evaluating the impact of a low-cost, parent-focused intervention on student attendance in grades K¨C5. The intervention targeted commonly held parental misbeliefs undervaluing the importance of regular K¨C5 attendance as well as the number of school days their child had missed. The intervention decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. This study presents the first experimental evidence on how to improve student attendance in grades K¨C5 at scale and has implications for increasing parental involvement in education
%K attendance
%K parents
%K beliefs
%K intervention
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0002831218772274