CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter examines views of other researcher on tardiness, role of home environment and their

impact on academic performance, why students are late to school, why are the reasons behind

tardiness, and how its affect the learning process. Here some studies that relate to research

questions that will help to understand the meaning and causes of tardiness. Tardiness views as late

coming of students in school, not coming school on time, wasting time in the way to school and

missing preschool activities.

One of the most recurring and the most “frustrating problem” that the schools are having with their

students nowadays is tardiness (Sprick and Daniels, 2007). It creates problems, not just to the

students but also to the teachers (Cowan Avenue Elementary School Community, 2007).

Everywhere in the world students are predictable to be on time. As cited by Nakpodia and

Dafiaghor (2011), “lateness” can be defined as the “situation where an individual arrives after the

proper, scheduled or usual time (Oxford Advance Learners’ Dictionary, 5th ed., 1995)

Furthermore, Lauby (2009) puts it as a term used to describe “people not showing up on time” and

Breeze et al. (2010) contributed by saying that, the term “class tardiness” has been defined as

students not attending lecture on time, missing out initial time from the first period and primarily
not being present in the time set. In most schools, a student is considered tardy when he/she is not

present when the school bell rings.

A school is primarily an established institution that aims to educate learners (Oxford Advanced

Learners Dictionary, 2010). It is designed with the purpose of bringing children from different

families together under one roof (the classroom) for the purpose of teaching and learning under

the direction of teachers. One of the important traits entering into a successful person’s character

is the habit of punctuality (Phurutse, 2005). Effective teaching and learning cannot take place

without the coming together of the teacher and the learners (Oghuvbu, 2012). A learner that is not

regular in school, faces learning problems resulting from late – coming to school such as, truancy,

and inability to read and not consulting with the teacher (Onouwodeke, 1995). Lateness can be

viewed as an outcome of laxity or system breakdown (Peretemode, 1991). Lateness is a function

of time and as such time is usually used as the criteria for determining lateness. Late coming

violates the principle of punctuality and if not checked at the onset, may become a habit with the

individual involved and may have negative consequences (Breeze et al., 2010). The importance

of education is increasing and is regarded highly. The societies of the past are on the front rank of

the world civilization on account of education, this educational system may be seriously hampered

as a result of late-coming especially in high schools. In most developing countries, Lateness is a

major and a continuous administrative problem among high school learners (Egbule, 2004;

Dafiaghor, 2011). The society suffers a lot as the children of school going age hang around the

street corners, intimidating other people and stealing properties of those who are in school and

other places of work. Lateness could result into poor academic achievement, disruption in class,

difficulty in keeping accurate records, reduced ability to meet instructional target and damage of

school reputation (ETC, 2009).

Reasons for being late in class and other factors affecting the punctuality if a student vary. There

had been some theories that pointed out that tardiness is caused by the personality of a person.

Santillano (2010) stated that psychological theorists considered some “personality traits,

including low self-esteem and anxiety” as triggering factors of tardiness. She also mentioned that

while some theorists considered tardiness as an “inborn quality” since our being early or late is

“partially biologically determined”, which she also agreed, other experts also believed that some

people are “chronically tardy” for the reason that they consciously and unconsciously get good

things from it.

Nakpodia and Dafiaghor (2011) attribute lateness or tardiness to a lot of factors or

causes. Going late to bed and waking up late next morning are the most common. The authors

added social networking and film-watching late at night can cause tardiness. The student may

forget that he/she needs to be in school the next day. Ledoux, as cited by Pimentel and Quijada

(2011), said that lack of sleep causes neural malfunctions and further affects a person’s behavior.

In the study’s case, it is a student’s punctuality that is affected. Sometimes, it is not solely the

students’ fault why they keep on being late in coming to class. The distance between the

student’s home and school or solely the school’s location is also considered by Nakpodia and

Dafiaghor (2011) as a possible cause for tardiness. Not just because it takes more time to get to

school, but according to the authors, the student is susceptible to more distractions and

hindrances along the way. In some cases, individuals are obsessed by their appearance to the

detriment of timely engagements in school. Oghuvbu (2008) agreed to this when he opined that

“lateness is common among females more than males”. This could be as a result of the fact that,

females require more time for their body and facial care and make up.
 Another factor that could affect the punctuality of a student is the response of the teachers

to tardy students. Sprick and Daniels (2007) stated that the range of the teachers’ response was

“from ignoring them to sending them to office”. This variation could lead the students to confusion

as to how important it is to be on time in going to class. Individuals are likely to be more punctual,

if they perceive obvious “rule of law” in terms of punctuality (Clackmannanshire Council Online,

2010).

Jumare, A.M. et al., (2015) this research aimed to answer these research

questions: Is gender play any role among the student’s tardiness? Does age have any relation with

students’ tardiness? In this study four secondary schools were selected. The sample of sixty tardy

students that were observes with semi-structure interview with in two weeks. The research tool

was partially adopted, whereas the other part was self-constructed. The data was analyzed via

simple percentages and frequencies for easy explanation and understanding. The consequences

show that tardiness of school is complex among girl, those within the ages of 16-20 is regular late

comers and senior among others. It was endorsed that parents (especially mothers) must condense

keeping busy girls with home activities especially in the morning; school administrators and

teachers should raise effort on counseling approaches to adolescent students due to their change in

perception and school rules.

Dafiaghor (2011)., this study is an analysis on tardiness in public schools,

they have posed a main problem to school administration in Delta State, Nigeria, especially in the

primary and secondary school. The researcher emphasized on students, staff and supporting staff

in the school system. The salient feature is that tardiness of school’s epidemics school managers,

bringing about inefficiencies at work by way of management. Consequently, this study elaborates

the meaning, causes and effects of tardiness of schools as associated to the school administration
in Delta State, Nigeria. The paper also introduces numerous remedies to reduce tardiness. This

analysis helped school administration to eradicate tardiness, a hydra-headed monster afflicting

schools in Delta State, Nigeria, and as such bring about easy administration of schools in the

region.

Bataineh, M.Z., (2014) this paper based on empirical research, research

analyze the previous researches to investigate the phenomenon of tardiness and coping strategies.

At least 24 research articles were reviewed related to tardiness from 1991 to 2013. All journals

and research reports on factors related to tardy behavior and coping strategies reviewed. All papers

were investigated and systematized according to the definitions of tardiness and many reasons

related with students’ tardy behavior and coping approaches. Though, the results of this research

show that there was decisive evidence from the revised literature related students’ tardy behavior,

according to number of papers it was small. In conclusion, finding of the study shows that the most

challenging parts of being a teacher to dealing with disturbing behavior in the classroom and the

paper suggested more research and investigation is one of the most challenging aspects of being a

professor and the study recommended further investigations and analysis might be useful to get a

comprehensive knowledge of patterns of tardy behavior and dealing approaches for the tardy

students.

Usually people provide many causes for late coming, and always expected

from others to recognize and disregard about their lateness. Every person has been late at least

one time in his / her life; it might be late to party, school, meeting, office etc Matondo, 2012; Lee,

nd; Marin, 2001; Ghyoot, 2000; Levine et al, 1980 in Koslowsky, 2000). Each cultural groups

have different practices regarding being on time, some families have also different practices to

valuing time. These types of families must tell their children to importance of time and educate
them to be on time always (White, Valk, & Dialmy, 2011). There are many factors that mostly

manipulate students come up to late to school.

In this research, Praveen and Kazmi, (2013) exposed that few teachers are

tardy that encourage the students to come late in class, because they know their teacher is not on

time. The aim of this research was to develop relationship between teacher sluggishness and job

contentment; a result of this research demonstrated reason behind teacher tardiness is not satisfied

with their jobs. This research was employed in Pakistan; consist on a sample of 400 female

teachers both from public and private sector in Abbottabad. This study expresses a positive

correlation between regularity of teacher and job satisfaction, signifying that those teachers who

were not satisfied with their job atmosphere had difficulty in regularity.

Tardy teacher is also one of the reasons that force students to being tardy.

Students always observe their teachers, if a teacher is always late; they also come late to class

because their teacher is not present in class on set time. In this present study teachers are part of

research that explains how tardiness affects teaching learning process and how to deal tardiness in

their class and school.

There are just few studies establish to know the impact of lateness on the

teaching and learning process. Some researcher (Bataineh, 2014; Marxhausen, 2010; Dafiaghor,

2011) expose many impacts of students lateness in their studies. A tardy student disturb the whole

process of class room, as walk in class in the search of seat, or asking about what’s going in class,

this type of nonsense behavior annoys others. When students come late in class it disturbs the

follow of lesson, teacher is discussing an important point they are forgetting point that were

discussing due to disruption. Teacher feels need to start lesson from beginning to accommodate to

tardy student this action may lose of attention of other students. They feel bad about tardy students
those influence their learning (Bataineh, 2014; Marxhausen, 2010; Etsey Gakure, Mukuria &

Kithae, 2013; Dafiaghor, 2011).

The start of lesson is much important teacher share essential

information about topic, background knowledge, key points for better understanding, describe the

importance of topic in exams view, a tardy student at high risk to lose all important information.

When a student absent from school it’s hard to know about lesson that taught in his absence, this

may lead to failure in exams or assignments. Lateness could affect the students’ performance lead

to low results and failure.

Moore, (2010) describe the problem of students’ lateness that is one of

most important dilemma of present century. This research is employed on students of high school

from Georgia district. The methodology of this research used combine methods approach to

investigate the lateness among high school students. The population of this study was consisting

of 10 high schools from Georgia District. The sampling technique is random sampling that was

used for selection of respondents. Random sampling is known as probability sampling it means

each individual has equal chance to participate in research. Questionnaires, observation and Sami-

structure interview was used as data collection tool in this study. Size of school, locale, number of

enrollments, minority students, role of gender, financial status and social status all these factors

were consider important to eradicate the school tardiness. The qualitative part of research used

interviews to get views of teachers, administrators and supporting staff about tardiness and asked

them about those truancy policies and practices were used to dropping tardiness among students.

The main finding of the research student lateness is ongoing problem of this century. The main

reasons of lateness are categories as student problems, like socialization and boldness; school

agents, like crowdedness, short breaks and cabinet crisis; personal issues, like tardy teacher,
disorganization and empty classrooms. Students were part of quantitative research after

interviewing them researcher reached at results that some of them late to school due late to sleep

and late to rise, so they late to get ready for school and taking breakfast. Some of them claim that

they do their homework in the morning. The findings of research will disclose the conditions that

may differ from environments and countries.

Mtsetfwa, (2006) investigate the principle of time management and

its effects on teaching learning process. This study based on qualitative methods to gain responses

from teachers, students and heads. The data were collected from two schools in South Africa. The

aim of this study to identify how much they valued time and time influence the teaching and

learning process. Researcher used observations and interviews as research tool to collect data.

Through the interviews on research question about time awareness and its effects on the whole

process, several students supposed that late comers interrupt the lesson as teacher distract

concentration to lecture and most of the time forget the point to be discuss. This kind of interruption

starts when a tardy student comes in class and he/ she would look for seat, pulling seats (chairs,

desks) make noise. This situation create bad impact on others they don’t like tardy person. In 2nd

school situation was utterly different teachers came late to class that affect the class time; he/ she

had short time for teaching in sort to shift for the next class. Rest of students considers late coming

as ill-mannered to both of them (teacher & colleague).

Tardiness and absenteeism are major problem of these days, tardiness

lead to absenteeism in students this may cause dropouts. Each school has truancy and tardy

strategies to help them to reduce the problem of tardiness. Cowan Elementary, in the USA, planned

some strategies to dishearten students to be late; when a student is tardy above 12 times, student
will be sent to the Pupil service and Attendance (PSA) officer that discuss the problem with

students’ parents. The aim of policy is intended to manipulate the behavior of tardy students

(Cowan Crier, 2007).

Egan, (2014) investigate the impact of incentives on tardy students of high

school in New England. In this high school 2 thousand students admitted, thirty nine students were

recognize as tardy to school at least 10 times in 4 months. The aim of this research was finding

the impact of incentive strategy on tardy ones. Only the 4 students were able contribute in this

research that consumed 2.5 months to finish. Egan used foodstuff as weapon to call the students

earlier; the strategy was given the “The Breakfast Club”. The 4 students were given free food that

came earlier and the main purpose of this was to motivate the other students who came late. The

finding was not satisfactory as giving the free food was not enough to inspire to tardy students.

The same type of idea was used by Hargreaves and McLaughlin, (1981) in

a different way as included students with personal desires. In the same way the 4 four students

were chosen for idea and the teachers were asked to look after their sluggishness with the passage

of time, those who improve were chosen to participate in activities other than studying such as

swimming, football, dancing and singing. The consequences showed an affirmative change in all

the 4 students.

Marvul, (2010) was concerned about the attendance of small number

boys and the rate of tardiness among boys in a school in Florida, USA. With the help of attendance

register 40 boys were kept under observation those have many absentees from school. The main

objective was to check the presence of those 40 boys and to inform their parents when a student

was not present, late, or feeling lazy. And inform the parents about the behavior of their child in

class, and his contribution in groups of school sports club. A plan, which can improve student’s
presence and positive attitude, and increases dedication to school, that facilitates sustain and

esteem.

Kgosi, (2010) the lateness of students in the Botho University has developed

to be a major task. There is a requirement to recognize the reasons that gave raise to tardiness

between the students, in sort to solve this problem efficiently. This research investigates the

reasons of student’s lateness and the impact of a tardy student on the others. The research has

focused on many aspects to make the students regular in school. This is based on qualitative

methods during research the case study method was used. Purposive and conveniences sampling

techniques were utilized for the selection of populace. The facts and figures were gathered from

interviews, annotations and field notes from respondents. The important reasons that played a role

in student lateness were exposed by results of this study. The reasons were transport problem, self

regulation, time was not managing properly and school distance. In sort to reduce student’s

lateness it is suggested to alter initial time of lectures and a truancy rule should be forcing to follow

strictly.

Onoyase, A., (2017) explained tardiness as repeated problem with the

students of secondary schools at Akoko South East. The 4 hypothesis were constructed and a tool

that was named as “Cause of Tardiness to School Questionnaire” was utilized to collect facts for

the research. The tool was reliable with a coefficient of 0.78. The content was valid, and the

language was suitable. The investigator did all the work with the help of 2 assistants which were

to manage three hundred twenty-five copies of survey. The hypothesis was checked at the

significance of 0.05 with the help of t-test. The results proved that there was not considerable

variation among girls and boys by the mass media which could play a significant role for school

tardiness.
 Several factors have been identified in different literatures as some of the reasons why

students come late to school. Chiu Mochi (1993) identified factors such as age, family

commitments, change of jobs on the part of parents, health problems as some of the factors that

may affect late – coming among high school students. Okwelle (2003) noted among other factors

that, learner may develop negative attitude towards school resulting in late – coming or poor

attendance because of non – employment of school leavers, repetition of class and insecurity. In

a separate study, Alio (2003) highlighted social status and educational level of parent as factors

that may influence school attendance and late coming. The study further pointed out that,

geographical location of school, student’s attitude towards the first subject of the day and

inadequate supervision of student’s activities by teachers and parents and poor teaching methods

among others may also affect lateness on the part of students. The report of Okpukpara and

Chukkwuone (2007) identified the role of gender in child schooling. From the study, female

headed household have higher attendance in schools whereas educated fathers are more likely to

have strong impact in increasing the probability of child school attendance than mothers. Emore

(2005) reported that lateness is common among female students than male students. This may be

due to their involvement in domestic activities. The study further pointed to school location as one

of the major causes of lateness among high school learners.

There is no major role of social position which could play an important role for school

tardiness. There is no important role of school locality, students from rustic and town and their

socialization for increasing tardiness to school. The researcher suggests to parents that they should

formulate few regulations those should be followed strictly. They should set the time perimeter for

television and the children should be ordered to go to bed earlier.