Abstract
In large classes, students' feelings of anonymity and interpersonal distance from the instructor can be particularly detrimental to those who struggle with course material. We tested a simple method for connecting with struggling students to improve their performance. We randomly divided students who scored 75% or lower on the first exam into 2 groups. Students in one group received a personalized e-mail message expressing our concern and providing information about course resources. Students in the other group served as a no-e-mail control. Those who received the message performed better on the second exam than those who did not. We discuss possible explanations for our findings and question whether multiple e-mails might enhance performance more consistently.
Notes
1Seven hundred and seventy-one students enrolled in the courses. Students who did not take Exam 1 (n = 13) or Exam 2 (n = 24) were dropped from analyses. Of those who did not take Exam 2, 2 were in the e-mail condition and 6 were in the no-e-mail condition. These small ns precluded us from testing whether the proportion of students who did not take Exam 2 was different in each group. Dropped students' Exam 1 scores were not significantly different in the two groups, t(6) = 1.8, p =.12.
2Overall, mortality was low in this study. We computed the proportion of students in the e-mail and no-e-mail groups who did not take each exam and then computed the mean proportion for each group. These means were similar, t(6) =.07, p =.95.
3Levene's test revealed that the variances were not equal across groups. Given this, we relied on statistical estimates that do not assume equal variance where appropriate. We reported degrees of freedom accordingly.
4In a separate analysis, we excluded the rest of the class and compared the change in performance in the e-mail and control groups. A similar finding emerged, t(158) = 1.59, p =.055 (one-sided).
5Because we used the students' highest four exam grades to calculate their final grades, many students took the first four exams and opted not to take the final.