Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Aug 10;18(8):e0288166.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288166. eCollection 2023.

Even minimal student-instructor interactions may increase enjoyment in the classroom: Preliminary evidence that greeting your students may have benefits even if you can't remember their names

Gillian M Sandstrom  1   2
Affiliations

Even minimal student-instructor interactions may increase enjoyment in the classroom: Preliminary evidence that greeting your students may have benefits even if you can't remember their names

Gillian M Sandstrom. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Students value rapport with their instructors, and benefit from interacting with them; student-instructor contact is related to persistence, satisfaction, grades, etc. Instructors who wish to build rapport with their students are often encouraged to address their students by name. However, learning names is difficult for many people, and when classes are large, or team-teaching restricts the time spent with a group of students, it is even more difficult. Outside the classroom, even minimal social interactions with strangers (e.g., making eye contact, having a brief chat) can increase feelings of connection. Could minimal social interactions between instructors and students also have benefits? A rapport-building intervention was tested on students in three classes taught by two instructors (N = 352). Compared to students in a control condition and students who were assigned to a greeting condition (a minimal interaction designed to enable instructors to recognize students' faces) reported a stronger relationship with the instructor, and greater relationship strength predicted greater interest/enjoyment, relatedness and belonging. This novel intervention produced similar results to a more traditional nameboard condition, designed to enable instructors to learn students' names. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that even when instructors struggle to learn students' names, they can still build rapport with their students by simply greeting them as they enter class.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Students’ interest/enjoyment and belonging, by condition.
Bars indicate standard error of the means.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Students’ interest/enjoyment, relatedness and belonging, by relationship strength.
Bars indicate standard error of the means.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Keaveny TJ, McGann AF. Behavioral dimensions associated with students’ global ratings of college professors. Res High Educ. 1978;9(4):333–345.
    1. Meyers SA. Do your students care whether you care about them? Coll Teach. 2009;57(4):205–210.
    1. Fiske ST, Cuddy AJ, Glick P. Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends Cogn Sci. 2007;11(2):77–83. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2006.11.005 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Feldman KA. Effective college teaching from the students’ and faculty’s view: Matched or mismatched priorities? Res High Educ. 1988;28(4):291–329.
    1. Frey PW. A two-dimensional analysis of student ratings of instruction. Res High Educ. 1978;9(1):69–91.