Theme: understanding and working with syllabus used lyceums and collegers

2.2.Use of the Syllabus Across the Semester
We asked students how long ago it was when they last looked at the syllabus for their psychology course. The results are presented in Table 1. At the first administration, almost half of the students reported they had looked at the syllabus the same day as the class, with nearly all of those students reporting they had looked at it within the last two hours. At the second administration, fewer students reported looking at the syllabus within the past two hours and more students reported they had not looked at the syllabus in the past week.
These data suggest that, as the semester progresses, students are less likely to have looked at the syllabus in the immediate past. To better understand this, we combined the data from the first and second administrations and looked at the relationship between week of administration (third, fifth, seventh, ninth, etc.) and when the students last viewed the syllabus. We found a positive correlation .Closer inspection of the data revealed that a significant shift occurred at Week 7 (about mid-term).⁵ The median time since last viewing their syllabus for students surveyed in the third and fifth week of the semester was the same day (more than two hours before class, but still the same day). However, the median time since last viewing their syllabus for students surveyed in the seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth weeks was the day prior.
Use of Syllabus in the Psychology Course
The questionnaire contained a list of items found on a typical syllabus. We asked students to check all of the items that they looked for when they last viewed their General Psychology syllabus. Results are presented in Table 2. More than 60% of students in each administration reported they last looked for whether there was a quiz scheduled for that day’s class, which was the most frequently endorsed item. In the first administration, a majority of students also looked for the topic of the day’s class and what they were to have read for class. Half said they also looked for information about what homework would be collected. In the second administration, significantly fewer students reported looking for that day’s reading assignment (X2 [1, N = 205] = 4.54, p < .05) or for what homework would be collected that day (X2 [1, N = 205] = 4.90, p < .05). There were no other significant differences in responses between the first and second administrations.
To determine whether there was a relationship between when the students last looked at the syllabus and what they looked at, we formed two groups: those who viewed their general psychology syllabus within the past two days (n = 94 for the first administration and n = 65 for the second) and those who last viewed it prior to that (n = 18 for the first administration and n = 28 for the second). We found that those who looked at the syllabus more recently were more likely to have looked at the day’s topic, both for the first administration (X2 [1, N = 112] = 7.55, p < .001) and for the second (X2 [1, N = 92] = 4.41, p < .05). There were no other significant differences.
We asked students what they would do first if they wanted to know when the next assignment in their psychology class was due. The overwhelming majority of students (101 [90.7%] in the first administration and 76 [81.7%] in the second) said they would look first at their syllabus. Surprisingly, though 53 students in the first administration reported transferring that information to a planner or calendar, only four (7.5%) said they would check their planner first. Two (1.8%) students in the first administration and five (5.4%) students in the second said they would ask a classmate. In both administrations, one student would ask the instructor, and one would wait for the instructor to remind the class of the assignment.
Use of the Syllabus in Other Courses
We asked students to report what they are most likely to look for when they consult a syllabus in any course. The most popular responses in the first administration were “what homework would be collected in the next class” (f = 55, 49.1%), “what to read for the next class” (f = 43, 38.4%), “whether there is a quiz in the next class” (f = 38, 33.9%), and “topic to be covered in the next class” (f = 24, 21.4%). The most common responses in the second administration were “whether there is a quiz in the next class” (f = 38, 40.9%), “what homework would be collected in the next class” (f = 32, 34.4%), “when the next test will be” (f = 22, 23.7%), “the next reading assignment” (f = 19, 20.4%), and “topic to be covered in the next class” (f = 18, 19.4%).
We also asked students if they were taking a course for which they relied more heavily on the syllabus than they did in the psychology course, and why. Sixty-eight students (60.1%) in the first administration and 55 students (61.8%) in the second administration said they did have such a course. English composition, math, and science courses were most commonly cited⁶.
By far the most common reason given for relying more heavily on a syllabus in a different course was that the course had more homework assignments due. Thirty (44.1%) students in the first administration and 24 (43.6%) in the second administration cited this reason. The next most frequent reason given, cited by 13 (19.1%) students in the first administration and 9 (16.4%) students in the second, was that the syllabus in the other course was more detailed. For instance, it listed specific problem sets to be completed or it contained grading criteria for assignments. Less common reasons included that the class was more difficult, there were more tests in the other course, and that the student cared more about that course (e.g., it was required for their major). A few students said they relied more heavily on the syllabus in a different course because the readings didn’t follow a set pattern (e.g., were not in chapter order or only portions of the chapter were assigned).
Although nearly all of those courses met twice a week, most students reported looking at the syllabus more often than that, especially earlier in the semester. Half of the students in the first administration reported looking at the syllabus three or four times per week, while 19 (27.9%) reported looking at it five times per week or more. Only one student in the first administration reported looking at that syllabus once a week or less. In the second administration, however, just 9 (9.7%) of the students looked at it at least five times a week, while 31 (33%) looked at it three to four times per week. Five (9.1%) students reported looking at it once a week or less. Correlating the number of times students looked at the syllabus with week of administration yielded a correlation coefficient that approached significance (rs = -.173, p = .055), indicating a slight trend toward relying less heavily on the syllabus as the semester progressed.
The students reported what item(s) they tended to look for when they last viewed the syllabus for that course. Those results are presented in Table 3. There were no significant differences in responses between the first and second administration of the survey. For both administrations, the students reported that they tended to look for homework assignments most often and instructor contact information least often.⁷
There is a faculty perception that students either lose or never look at their syllabi. In fact, faculty who visited a poster session in which we presented preliminary data from this study frequently commented that their students either lost their syllabi or never read it (Becker & Calhoon, 2004). At least one published article presents a method for preventing students from losing their syllabi (Smith, 1993), which one of us used until our institution began using a course management system for posting syllabi online. Despite persistent faculty beliefs that students lose their syllabi, our data indicate this simply is not true. Nearly all of the students in our study, regardless of how late in the semester they were surveyed, reported they still had their syllabus, and a large majority said they kept it nearby with their class notes. Moreover, in both administrations of our survey, a large majority told us they looked at the syllabus in their psychology course either that day or the day before. This was a surprise to us, because we held the popular belief that students routinely disregard their syllabi. Perhaps those few students who come to us begging another copy or proclaiming exemption from some deadline or policy because they “didn’t know about it” are more memorable to us faculty members than the large majority of students who do not make such requests. Another possibility arises when we look at our data along with the results of Smith and Razzouk’s (1993) study of students’ memory for syllabus information. That is, the vast majority of students may well keep and look at their syllabi, but simply have relatively poor memory of all but the basics (i.e., course title, instructor name, credit hours, text title, purpose of project, course number, and number of exams).
Students reported looking at the syllabus more frequently when a class has a large number of assignments and/or when the syllabus contains important details about those assignments. Instructors who want their students to make use of the syllabus would do well to include this information, as our data indicate students will look for it. Our data also suggest that students look at the syllabus somewhat less frequently as the semester progresses. For their General Psychology course, they were more likely to have looked at the syllabus the day prior to class rather than the day of. For the course in which they relied more heavily on the syllabus, they reported looking at the syllabus less frequently later in the semester than earlier. The most optimistic interpretation of this phenomenon is that the students were becoming more aware that to be properly prepared for class, they needed to look at the syllabus at least a day in advance of class. In any event, even toward the end of the semester, most of our students reported that they were looking at their syllabi at least once a week, which corroborates what Meuschke, et al. (2002) reported.
Our queries into students’ use of a personal calendar or planner provided interesting insights into their time management skills. Close to 60% of students reported that they transferred some of the syllabus information, usually test dates and assignment due dates, to their planner. Thus, they appeared to recognize that a planner is a useful time management tool. Younger students were more likely than older students to use a planner, perhaps because of a relatively recent trend of Middle School and High School teachers in our area requiring students to have planners.
Although this is a positive step, our data also suggest that students lack sophistication in using those planners effectively. Only a third of students put information about reading assignments into their planner. In addition, although nearly all students who used a planner entered test dates into it, approximately half of those students still reported that the last thing they had looked for in their syllabus was a test date. In other words, they consulted their syllabus rather than their planner for that information. Similarly, a large percentage of students who used planners also transferred assignment due dates, but only a handful of those individuals said they would check first for that information by looking in their planners.
In addition to their inefficient use of a planner, we found other evidence that our students did not plan effectively. Students, even those who looked at the syllabus less than two hours before class began, most commonly reported looking for the day’s topic and readings, and whether or not there was a quiz or homework assignment due that day.⁸ This left them little time to actually prepare for class.
Our findings regarding poor time management skills fit with the second author’s experiences teaching a one-credit-hour course on “Planning Your Psychology Career” for new psychology majors. In this course, students write about their strengths and weaknesses as a student. In most classes, over half of the students described themselves as having time management difficulties, such as procrastinating, cramming for tests, and running out of time to complete readings or assignments.
Although our data contradict “faculty lore” that students do not look at their syllabi after the first day of class, our data do suggest that students may not use syllabi in ways that faculty might expect. Instructors spend a lot of time developing thoughtful syllabi, including information they believe is important for their students, yet many believe that the students never look at them. So how do we help students pay more attention to more of the syllabus? One suggestion would be to remind students that the information is in the syllabus at the time in which they need it. For instance, the instructor could tell the students to look at the policy for late assignments and/or the academic dishonesty policy about a week before the first assignment is due. Additional instruction in using a syllabus, especially in looking far enough ahead in the schedule so that the student is prepared for the next class, might also be helpful for students. Finally, instructors might consider replicating portions of our study with their own students. That is, as part of a classroom assessment exercise, an instructor could construct a short questionnaire to see how often the students look at the course syllabus, what they usually look at, and what information might be missing that the student would like to see. This process would demonstrate to students the importance of the syllabus content and how they use it to the instructor. In addition, obtaining feedback from one’s students could help the instructor improve the syllabus so that students are better able to make use of it in effective ways.