Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study:

Tardiness is the habit of being late or delaying arrival. Being

late as a form of misconduct may be formally punishable in various
arrangements, such as workplace, school, etc. An opposite personality trait
is punctuality. Workplace tardiness is one of attendance issues, along with
the absence from work and failure to properly notify about absence or being
late.
To be at work on time is an implied obligation unless stated
otherwise. It is a legal reason for discharge in cases when it is a
demonstrable disregard of duty: repeated tardiness without compelling
reasons, tardiness associated with other misconduct, and single inexcusable
tardiness resulted in grave loss of employer's interests.
If tardiness is minor or without interference with employer's operations, it is
not to be legally considered as misconduct.
Students must understand the importance of punctuality and
how it connects to their future working lives, since the school is also
mandated to produce good citizens and workers. Tardy students miss
important instruction and get lower grades or fail subjects. They also
disrupt the delivery of instruction as they straggle into class late during the
first 5 -10 minutes or more of each class. They can also be engaged in
misconduct during the unsupervised time before they reach their
classes. Those lost minutes may add up to hours of lost teaching time by
the end of the term.

According to school policy, tardy students may be warned the

first two times they arrive late. After that they may be given detentions and
parents can be consulted. They can also be sent to the principal’s office if
the problem persists. Teachers can help to solve the problem by starting all
classes punctually and giving short quizzes at the start of the lesson. The
cumulative marks for these quizzes will count for a percentage of the total
class assessment. This would encourage more students to be
punctual. Recognizing and rewarding students for punctuality would also
be useful.
 Chapter 2

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Students must understand the importance of punctuality and how it

connects to their future working lives, since the school is also mandated to
produce good citizens and workers. Tardy students miss important
instruction and get lower grades or fail subjects. They also disrupt the
delivery of instruction as they straggle into class late during the first 5 -10
minutes or more of each class. They can also be engaged in misconduct
during the unsupervised time before they reach their classes. Those lost
minutes may add up to hours of lost teaching time by the end of the term.

According to school policy, tardy students may be warned the first two
times they arrive late. After that they may be given detentions and parents
can be consulted. They can also be sent to the principal’s office if the
problem persists. Teachers can help to solve the problem by starting all
classes punctually and giving short quizzes at the start of the lesson. The
cumulative marks for these quizzes will count for a percentage of the total
class assessment. This would encourage more students to be
punctual. Recognizing and rewarding students for punctuality would also
be useful.

Tardiness is the one of the most “frustating’ and repetitive problem

that schools are having with their students nowadays. According to childrens
absenteeism and tardiness affect the schools ability to provide effective
educational services, the achievements of consistently absent or late
students and disrupt the learning experiences of other children in the school.
The most vital learning time of the day for the students lies in the morning,
explicitly between 8:00 to 9:30 AM. It is because the students are most alert
and perceptive at this time of the day.

It is also the reason why the most essential lessons and subject
matters are deliberated during this time. When students are late or are
absent during this time of the day, they, in effect, miss out most of the
essential lessons to be remembered, understood and it is a lot significant to
value time and practice being on time while punctual attendance is of
paramount importance in ensuring that all students have full access to the
curriculum. Valuable learning time is lost when students are absent or late.
 Disadvantage of Cutting classes

A Research Paper Presented to the Faculty

of Mandaluyong High School

Junior High School Level Mandaluyong city

In Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements In English 10

BY:

JAZZLYNE BERDAN

CARL JHESTER TAGUINOD

GENALYN CRUZ

Ms. Rubhy V. Acero

English Teacher

S.Y 2018-2019
 Chapter 3

DISCUSSION

The researchers found that students who are frequently late to

school often miss out on important opening announcements
and academic activities.

‘Teachers can become frustrated as late students disrupt

instruction, often requiring reteaching of what they have
missed. Tardy behavior can also negatively affect the overall
classroom environment,’ the study says.

Arriving late to school can also mean that students miss out on
activities designed to build connections with their peers,
potentially impacting their social interactions and creating a
greater sense of alienation from their classmates.

Punishment or positive reinforcement?

So, how can teachers tackle the issue? The report suggests it is
generally not helpful for teachers to punish late students once
they get to class, because it could potentially aggravate the
situation.

‘There appears to be a lack of empirical evidence that

punishment for tardiness yields any positive results,’ the study
says.

Instead, the authors suggest using praise as a specific positive

reinforcement strategy, as it has proved to be effective for
addressing problem behaviour.

‘Praise has been recognized as perhaps the easiest modification

teachers can make to address students’ problem behaviors,’
the study notes.

When implementing this strategy, the authors point out that

there are several things to consider. Firstly, they suggest using
recent school data to identify which students show a consistent
pattern of being late. ‘For example, it makes little sense to
intervene with a student who had a pattern of tardiness at the
beginning of the school year but is currently tardy only
occasionally.’

They also note that young students often rely on an adult to

get them to school on time, and teachers should be cautious of
the fact that the students’ tardiness may be a result of parent
behaviour rather than student behaviour. ‘In such cases,
intervention may need to be directed more to the parents,’ the
study says.

A schoolwide plan

At a secondary school level, chronic tardiness can significantly

reduce the minutes of instruction for all students enrolled in
the class, not just the tardy student.

A US study titled Schoolwide intervention to reduce chronic

tardiness at the middle and high school levels found that
‘instructional time lost to widespread tardiness is likely to
significantly affect the capacity of the entire student population
to meet rigorous academic standards’.

The research suggests that a system-level intervention is

required to combat student tardiness, to ensure guidelines are
current and consequences for tardy behaviour is implemented
and effective.

The report recommends a preventative schoolwide plan include

the following:

 active supervision of students in common areas during all transition

periods
 clear definition and explicit teaching of expectations for behaviour
during transition periods
 immediate and consistent consequences for tardiness
 data-based decision making with respect to intervention planning and
monitoring of outcomes (Tyre, Feuerborn & Pierce 2011).

The impact on other students

In his 2014 academic paper – The achievement effects of

tardy classmates: Evidence in urban elementary
schools – Michael Gottfried explores the impact of tardy
students’ behaviour on their peers.

Gottfried acknowledges that if teachers respond to the

educational needs of late students by reallocating regular class
time, then other students are adversely affected and classroom
instruction is slowed by this disruption.

‘With tardy students entering the school day at abnormal times

and potentially missing a large number of cumulative
instructional hours, teachers must divert their attention away
from regular teaching time and towards remediation,’ he says.
‘As such, there are negative effects on achievement generated
when one student’s actions impede learning for other
classmates.’
 Chapter 4

CONCLUSION

The most common reason on why UP students are tardy is that they wake
up late every morning. When UP students are tardy and they find the
subject as an influence, it is more likely that the subject is a major subject
and/or a subject inclined to science and technology. Additionally, when UP
students are tardy and they find the teacher as the influence, it is more
likely that the teacher is boring. Also, when UP students are tardy because
of works and activities, more often that these works are related to school
and academics. Lastly, there is no correlation between the course of the
UP students and their tardiness. Likewise, there is no correlation between
the year level of UP students and their tardiness. The course and year level
of a UP student are not enough basis to predict whether that student will be
more or less likely to be tardy.

The results demonstrated Watson’s concept of Behaviorism, which

states that any human behavior is a response to external stimuli. The study
showed that the tardiness of UP Cebu students is but a response to
reasons/factors. Moreover, the most common reason that arose, which
showed to be waking up late, coincides with Oghuvbu’s study on Nigerian
students. Lastly, the percentage of tardiness among UP Cebu students was
quite high considering that more than half of the respondents showed
tardiness.
 Chapter 5

RECOMMENDATIONS

In general, the researchers were confident that the problems were

correspondingly answered with the accuracy and reliability it can utmost achieve;
however, there are still aspects in the research study that will improve the research and
yield more accurate and strong data and conclusions. The researchers have the
following recommendations:

1. The sample respondents were relatively small compared to the whole population of
UP Cebu. Stronger data and conclusions can be derived if a larger sample will be
studied and the margin of error will be at minimum.

2. It will also be helpful if more reasons are served to the respondents. This will expose
more areas of concern and even reveal more interesting correlations.

3. The effects of the subject, teacher and untimely works were related only to the whole
sample of respondents. More correlations and findings can arise if we study these
factors per course or year level.

4. A better and well-organized questionnaire will be needed to derive more accurate

answers and responses from the respondents. Some of the respondents simply put a
check mark on the reasons/factors instead of putting numbers indicating the rank of
these reasons/factors. The researchers selected other respondents to replace the
respondents that answered the questionnaire wrongly.