College students with high academic performance do not choose front­-row seats in the classroom

Abstract

Many students have the prime objective of suc­ ceeding on examinations, while teachers try to en­ sure that each student understands the content of the lecture. However, a classroom contains a large variety of students with various learning abilities, and the teachers would like all of them to under­ stand all aspects of the lectures. It would be helpful if each teacher understood the academic potential of each student. Unfortunately, this is not realistic. However, reports have stated that a student’s seat­ ing location in the classroom is associated with his or her academic performance. Giles et al. noted that there seemed to be a direct relationship be­ tween examination results and the distance of the student’s seat from the front of the classroom. They found that students in the front, middle, and back rows of the lecture theater achieved marks of 80%, 71.6%, and 68.1%, respectively. These reports stated that the seating location correlated with the degree of interaction with the lecture. 4 In order to confirm these findings, we analyzed available data obtained from a large number of students in a large classroom at K Women’s College School of Dental Hygiene.