Benefits of Class Participation

There is strong evidence for the importance of participating in class (Lyons,

1989;

Petress, 2006; Weaver & Qi, 2005). Participation is a way to bring students
actively

into the educational process and to assist in enhancing our teaching and
bringing

life to the classroom (Cohen, 1991, p. 699). Students are more motivated (Junn,

1994), learn better (Daggett, 1997; Garard, Hunt, Lippert, & Paynton, 1998;
Weaver &

Qi, 2005), become better critical thinkers (Crone, 1997; Garside, 1996), and have
selfreported gains in character (Kuh & Umbach, 2004) when they are prepared
for class

and participate in discussions. The more they participate, the less memorization
they

do, and the more they engage in higher levels of thinking, including
interpretation,

analysis, and synthesis (Smith, 1977). Students who participate also show
improvement in their communication skills (Berdine, 1986; Dancer &
Kamvounias, 2005),

group interactions (Armstrong and Boud, 1983), and functioning in a democratic

society (Girgin & Stevens, 2005).

Fassinger (1995a) noted that both students and professors can see the benefits
of

student participation, and Fritschner (2000) found that students thought

participation was essential to their own learning. Students have been found to
earn higher

grades as their participation increases (Handelsman et al., 2005). Though

students see

participation as important, and one-third would like to participate more (Wade,

1994), research suggests that it is not happening, as it is only a handful of

students in

any given classroom who participate regularly (Karp & Yoels, 1976), a
phenomenon
dubbed consolidation of responsibility (p. 429). This finding has been
reconfirmed

decades later in several studies (Crombie, Pyke, Silverthorn, Jones, & Piccinin,
2003;

Fritschner, 2000; Howard & Henney, 1998; Howard et al., 1996; Nunn, 1996).

Howard and Henney (1998) found that about 90% of interactions were made by
a

handful of students and only around one-third were regular participators, while
half

188 K. A. Rocca

of the students observed did not participate at all. Nunn (1996) found that an
average

of only around one minute of a 40-minute class period was spent in student

participation. Pearson and West (1991) and West and Pearson (1994) found that

students asked only 3.3 and 3.6 questions per hour of class time, respectively,

and around 73% of these were in reference to procedures, content, or

clarification

(West & Pearson, 1994). Although instructors, researchers, and students all
appear to

recognize the importance of and seemingly want to increase participation, many

students do not participate for multiple reasons.

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