Abstract
Attendance and punctuality are central to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), where competency is acquired through supervised workshop practice that cannot readily be recovered outside timetabled hours. Persistent lateness in the Diploma in Industrial Machining Technology at a Malaysian vocational college prompted this study, which reports the problem-identification phase of a teacher action research cycle. Its objectives were to identify the factors students associate with their own absence and lateness, and to establish which improvement measures they regard as most likely to help. A five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to 35 students, and the programme’s daily attendance records were examined alongside the responses. Data were analysed using frequencies, percentages and mean scores. Travel and commuting conditions recorded the highest mean among the factors examined (M = 3.06), followed by late bedtimes (M = 2.89), while lack of interest in the subject (M = 2.00), peer influence (M = 2.06) and lack of motivation (M = 2.20) recorded the lowest. No factor reached the high band of the interpretation scale, indicating that lateness in this cohort arises from several moderate pressures acting together rather than from a single dominant cause. Among the measures put to students, a comfortable college environment (M = 4.09), family encouragement (M = 4.06) and full-attendance rewards (M = 4.06) were rated most favourably. Because no intervention was implemented or evaluated in this phase, these ratings express anticipated usefulness rather than demonstrated effect, and provide a basis for the action phase.