Survey evaluates class participation

A recent survey on class participation conducted by the Undergraduate Assembly Academic Affairs committee drew attention to students’ expectations and comfort levels for speaking up in class.

The survey was launched on Oct. 15 through an all-school e-mail and spread via the UA Steering listserv and individual group listservs. Data was collected for a period of about three weeks, during which 282 students responded.

One trend in the data, explained Asian Pacific Student Coalition President and College junior Nicky Singh, who worked with the UA to spearhead the project, was that underclassmen enjoyed and more often attended recitations than upperclassmen. For example, 46.9 percent of freshman participants said they enjoyed participating, while only 26.2 percent of seniors responded the same way.

In general, respondents said they attend class more often than they attend recitation and try to balance classes with a large emphasis on participation with classes that don’t emphasize participation.

Half of the respondents answered that they tend to enjoy participating most in small, recitation-based discussions, and in classes that they feel are inherently discussion based.

Another broad trend in the data was that Wharton students said they felt less comfortable participating: 31.1 percent said they felt “uncomfortable” participating, while the majority response for other schools was “comfortable” or “neutral.” Singh guessed that “this may have been a result of the teachers or the classes themselves, rather than the students.”

Finally, students felt participation expectations for specific classes were not well enough defined. Singh said he approached Penn Course Review about including questions pertaining to what type of participation the class demanded, and how comfortable students felt participating.

The project’s original aim was to obtain data on how comfortable minority groups feel participating. The APSC proposed that the UA investigate the issue last spring, Singh said.

However, as the survey developed, the aim became to encompass more broad categories of students.

“What we quickly realized was that this was a much bigger issue than just ethnic issues, that participation was … something that the entire University was concerned about and all the students had interest in changing,” he said.

Psychology professor Joe Kable, who teaches both an introductory level lecture and a 400-level seminar, guessed that seniors are less enthusiastic about attending lecture recitations because they’re typically enrolled in several small seminars in their topic of interest. A senior taking a large lecture class usually does so to fulfill a requirement, he said.

“The thing you want to ask about … is ideally the mixture of classes that first-year versus fourth-year students are taking,” he said.

He added that in terms of school differences, the team behind the survey should “look at very similar classes or students from different schools rating the same class.”

Evaluating the validity of the survey method, Biological Basis of Behavior professor Ronald Ulm noted that there is a “potential selection bias” because “those for whom [participation] is a special interest would respond.”

UA Academic Affairs Director and Wharton junior Faye Cheng wrote in an e-mail that while there could have been improvements in their selection method, they “aren’t too concerned” based on the nature of what they plan to do with the data, which is mainly to expand Penn Course Review.

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