Students’ Perceptions of Course Syllabi: The Role of Syllabi in Motivating Students

Abstract

of a course, including, for example, general course information, instructor information, policies, and schedule. The syllabus has traditionally served contractual, record-keeping, and communication functions (Fink, 2012; Neaderhiser, 2016), called a content-focused syllabus in the present study. However, some have argued that its primary function should be that of a learning tool (Harrington, & Thomas, 2018; O’Brien, Millis, & Cohen, 2008). When framed in this way, the syllabus looks and reads much differently from traditional ones. Learning-focused syllabi (Canada, 2013; Palmer, Streifer, & Bach, 2014), developed from principles of backward-integrated course design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), educative assessment (Huba & Freed, 2000; Wiggins, 1998), scientific principles of learning (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014), and student motivation (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2007) are characterized by: • an engaging, question-driven course description; • long-ranging, multi-faceted learning goals; • clear, measurable learning objectives; • robust assessment and activity descriptions; • a detailed course schedule framed in what author Ken Bain (2004, p. 50) calls “beautiful questions;” • an inviting, approachable, and motivating tone; and • a focus on student success. Given that learning-focused syllabi are firmly grounded in evidence-based pedagogical practices and principles of student motivation theories, one might expect students to appreciate and prefer learning-focused syllabi over more traditional, contentand policy-focused ones—and to interact with them differently. But, does the document matter, in terms of what students attend to in syllabi, their perceptions of the course described by the document, and the instructor associated with the course? A few published studies have touched on pieces of this question for traditional, content-focused syllabi. For example, Becker & Calhoon (1999), Garavalia, Hummel, Wiley, & Huitt (1999), and Doolittle & Siudzinski (2010) found that when students read syllabi they primarily focus their attention on elements relating to performance (e.g. grading, policies, assignments, and due dates). Parkes, Fix, & Harris (2003) found through analysis of their institutional syllabi that instructors tend to exclude assessment information from syllabi, and the authors claimed this exclusion is to the detriment of student learning. In one of a several studies most directly addressing the question, “Does the document matter?,” Harnish & Bridges (2011) provide evidence that a “syllabus written in a friendly, rather than unfriendly, tone evoked perceptions of the instructor being more warm, more approachable, and more motivated to teach the course.” Along the same lines, Baecker (1998) examined how use of certain pronouns (e.g., I vs you) creates unproductive imbalances of power between instructor and student, again, potentially negatively impacting student learning. Along different lines of inquiry, Stevens and Gibson (2017) found that syllabi can foster either a masteryor performance-orientation toward learning, depending on how elements such as learning objectives and assignment descriptions are framed. Saville and colleagues (2010) compared students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness by giving students terse and detailed versions of a hypothetical syllabus. They found that students perceive an instructor to possess more “master teaching” skills when provided the more detailed syllabus, and these students were also more likely to recommend the course or take another course from that instructor. Finally, Ludy et al. (2016) found that students express increased interest in a course and the instructor when given a graphic-rich engaging syllabus compared to a text-rich contractual syllabus. While the literature mentioned above looks at isolated pieces of the puzzle, the current study adds significantly to this literature by systematically probing students’ perceptions of different types of syllabi, which were engineered using a valid rubric; their perceptions of the courses described by the syllabi; and, their perceptions of the instructors associated with the courses. To our knowledge, this is the first study to take a more comprehensive approach in examining the extent to which syllabi affect student perceptions.