The Importance of First Impressions
As professors and instructors, the importance of first impressions can be easily overlooked when we first begin to build rapport with our students. "Thin slice" research (e.g., Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993) suggests students make first impressions of professors’ nonverbal behaviors in the first 30 seconds that can predict their end-of-course evaluations. Thus, students rapidly formulate impressions of professors based on physical appearance, tone of voice, gender, eye contact, smiling, personality, dress and so forth upon first meeting each other. Studies show that a first impression will dictate a person’s perception regardless of how many times the first impression is challenged by new experiences (Nauert, 2018). As educators, we cannot stress enough the importance of putting our best foot forward on “game day,” in this case, the first day of class. However, that does not just happen in person — it also happens in writing.
The Course Syllabus is a First Impression
The course syllabus is one of the first means of written contact between educators and students. It is a course guide that is designed to promote student success. Most professors spend some time during the first day of a face-to-face course reviewing the syllabus. Similarly, in online courses, it is part of the course introduction and orientation. Most syllabi contain course content, learning goals, schedules, assignments and other informative elements that give students tools to be successful in the course. This contractual document conveys course protocol, grading and learning objectives. While a syllabus communicates to students what is required in a course, we argue that two of the most important aspects of this document is that it can communicate who you are, as well as how you have designed and will teach the class to promote their educational and professional success. If we treat a syllabus as a list, contract or a nuisance, students will see it as such. However, syllabi also reflect not just our professional competencies, but our personal ones. Syllabi have the ability to help us begin a relationship with students and to suggest how we will help them secure the desired knowledge, skills and abilities they need to reach their goals, such as learning valuable course content, shaping one’s professional persona, finding a sense of meaning or purpose in life, or achieving professional goals like graduate school admission and job obtainment. After all, students are motivated to attend higher education for a variety of reasons. One of the primary motivations for contemporary students is to acquire knowledge, skills and mentorship to obtain and be successful in their chosen careers; students who have a teacher care about them, encourage them, and get them excited about learning are twice as likely to be thriving in well-being and engaged in their work after graduation than students without these supports (Gallup, 2014). A good course syllabus is one way to communicate to students that you understand their motives for enrolling in your class and that you support what is important to them.
Learner-Centered Syllabi
Moving from a traditional, teacher-centered syllabus to a learner-centered syllabus, we design syllabi using an inviting tone, set clear and reasonable course objectives, and encourage our students to take responsibility for their own learning. Unlike a teacher-centered syllabus, a learner-centered syllabus is used to build a student-teacher “partnership.” Richmond, Mitchell, Morgan and Slattery (2016) describe this approach as a map for students to succeed with the intention of sharing power and control over what and how course material is learned. The underlying message here is:
As a student,
- I have some influence over what and how I learn.
- I am responsible for my learning.
- The goal of the course is about obtaining and/or refining knowledge, skills, attitudes and abilities that benefit my life and my career aspirations.
Research supports the positive effects that good, detailed, learner-centered syllabi have on students’ perceptions of the course and their instructors (e.g., Saville, Zinn, Brown & Marchuk, 2010). With a learner-centered syllabus, students can become more engaged and see their instructors as approachable, flexible and competent. Learner-centered syllabi establish community, encourage motivation, and share power and control between the instructor and the student.
Skills-Based Syllabus: An Example, Some Evidence
Most educators — and even other students — understand how disengaged students can negatively impact class morale. Furthermore, it can be challenging to build rapport with some students who do not recognize all of the benefits of a college education and simply see college as a way to get a job. Thus, educators need to identify and articulate skills students can gain in their courses so that, in turn, students can recognize and specifically describe these skills to employers and graduate schools.
In our syllabi, we emphasize skills students can market beyond the classroom to graduate schools or employers (e.g., Wickline et al., 2019). In an applied pilot study, using a learner-centered syllabus approach, we wanted to determine if incorporating a skills section in a syllabus would result in favorable perceptions of the course and instructor (Capeles & Wickline, 2019). Utilizing two sections of a sophomore-level psychology statistics course, we asked students to reflect on their perceptions of the course and their instructor via a brief end-of-semester survey. We also asked students their perspectives about the skills they gained from the course. After analyzing the quantitative and qualitative responses, we determined that students indicated very positive perceptions of the course, instructor and their knowledge of skills obtained from the course, especially after re-reading the syllabus section that described their skills. Looking across the qualitative findings, the students perceived the course as valuable to them. Thus, it appears that when students are able to see how a course benefits them personally or professionally, they tend to become more involved, even if the course is not specifically related to their chosen career.
Syllabi to Make a Good First Impression: Our Suggestions to You
- Include a skills-based section: If students are taking the course as an elective or requirement but do not feel they need to know the material, introduce them to the transferable skills that they can also acquire from the course. Encourage students to market their skills.
- Hand over some of the responsibility: Move towards a learner-focused syllabus and teach them to be accountable for their learning. For example, if daily homework calculations are required, do they want one homework dropped for when “life happens?” Or up to four? Make them reason through the consequences (both for grades and learning outcomes) for both options.
- Be proactive and helpful: Provide on- and off-campus resources about which students may not be aware that will help them be successful both in the course and in their career exploration and development (e.g., the University Career Center).
- Get creative: Include appropriate humor, images and/or color. For example, one of us does not assign exams but instead assigns “Celebrations of Learning.”
- Be friendly and accessible: Offer students flexible meeting times other than designated office (or we prefer “drop-in review”) hours. This could be before or after class or even noting that if the students’ situation requires an alternative meeting time or location (like video chat or phone calls), arrangements can be made.
Example Skills That We Include on a Statistics Syllabus
For examples of skills that can be incorporated into a statistics syllabus, see The Skillful Psychology Student: Prepared for Success in the 21st Century Workplace (PDF, 56KB)opens in new window, a CABE working group document (Naufel et al., 2018).
Want to See and Use the Whole Skills-Based Syllabus Section We Suggest?
- Please see Wickline (2019) for the actual skills-based statistics syllabus (PDF, 505KB)opens in new window, published with The Society of Teaching in Psychology Project Syllabus. You may use or modify the skills-based syllabus section for your course.
- See Wickline & Appleby’s (2019) Teaching Slam Demonstrationopens in new window from the National Institute for Teaching of Psychology Annual Conference.
References
Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(3), 431-441.
Capeles, K., & Wickline, V.B. (2019, April 24). “Mad skills”: Skills-based syllabus and course results in favorable student perceptions of course, instructor, and students’ skill sets. Poster presented for the Georgia Southern University Research Symposium (Armstrong Campus).
Gallup. (2014). Great jobs, great lives: The 2014 Gallup-Purdue index report. Washington, D.C.: Gallup, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.gallup.com/file/services/176768/GallupPurdueIndex_Report_2014.pdf (PDF, 592KB)opens in new window
Nauert, R. (2018, Aug. 8). First impressions are more lasting than once thought. Psych Central. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/01/19/first-impressions-are-more-lasting-than-once-thought/22769.htmlopens in new window
Naufel, K.Z., Appleby, D.C., Young, J., Van Kirk, J.F., Spencer, S.M., Rudmann, J., …Richmond, A.S. (2018). The skillful psychology student: Prepared for success in the 21st century workplace. Retrieved from: https:// www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/transferable-skills.pdf (PDF, 56KB)opens in new window
Richmond, A.S, Mitchell, N., Morgan, R.K., & Slattery, J.M. (2016). Can a learner-centered syllabus change students’ perceptions of student-professor rapport and master teacher behaviors? Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 2(3), 159-168.
Saville, B.K., Zinn, T.E., Brown, A.R., & Marchuk, K.A. (2010). Syllabus detail and students’ perceptions of teacher effectiveness. Teaching of Psychology, 37, 186-189.
Wickline, V.B. (2019). Research and Analysis-I. Retrieved from https://teachpsych.org/resources/Documents/otrp/syllabi/VW19stats.pdf (PDF, 505KB)opens in new window
Wickline, V.B., Appleby, D., Appleby, K., Apple, K., Bouchard, L., Cook, R., Erikson, L., Halpern, D., & Kelly, S. (2019, Jan. 6). Putting skills on the syllabus: Helping psychology majors prepare for the workforce. Poster presented for the annual meeting of the National Institute for Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg, Florida.
About the Authors
Kayla M. Capeles is a senior psychology major at Georgia Southern University — Armstrong Campus. She is currently an undergraduate student researcher in Virginia Wickline's, PhD, Social, Cultural and Interpersonal Process Laboratory in the psychology department. Most recently, she presented her research at the 2019 Georgia Southern University's Student Scholars Symposium regarding the impact of skills-based syllabus section for a psychology statistics and research methods course on student perceptions of the course and instructor. A U.S. Marine Veteran, she spent the majority of her service overseas in Japan and Southeast Asia. While serving, she received four promotions and was awarded an overseas service ribbon, the Award for Exemplary Service during Operation Cobra Gold, Most Improved PFT and High CFT awards, and the Good Conduct Medal for carrying out three consecutive years of honorable and faithful service. She is considering applying to the Master's Program for School Psychology in spring 2019 at Georgia Southern University.
Virginia (Ginger) Wickline, PhD, is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Georgia Southern University — Armstrong Campus. As an undergraduate, she participated in four short-term, faculty-led study abroad workshops to Jamaica, Italy, Belize and Hong Kong. As a graduate student, she served as a graduate assistant for two workshops to Scotland and England. Most recently, she sponsored a faculty-led short-term immersion workshop in Japan, and she is preparing to lead students in a summer workshop in Paris, France during the 2019-20 academic year. She serves as faculty adviser for the psychology club and Psi Chi National Honor Society chapters at her institution. Her primary research, teaching and service interest is the social functioning, psychological adjustment, and intercultural competence of study abroad and international students, although she has also published in the realms of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and nonverbal communication. In addition to numerous local and regional service, mentoring and teaching awards, she has been recognized with the 2006 Emory University Humanitarian Award, was a 2019 finalist for the Council of Undergraduate Research Social Science Mentoring Award and the Southeastern Psychological Association Mentoring Award, and is the 2012 national recipient of the Society for Teaching in Psychology Wayne Weiten Teaching Excellence Award.
Karen Appleby, PhD, is a professor in the sport science and physical education department at Idaho State University and the faculty coordinator for the ISU Program for Instructional Effectiveness. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes in sport management, sport psychology, senior capstone, and research and writing. She has published numerous peer-review articles focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning, diversity issues in sport, and the management of sport and she has given over 50 peer-reviewed and invited presentations at national, regional, and state conferences and meetings. She has been recognized for her outstanding contributions to her profession, university, community and students with the 2019 ISU Benny Faculty Member of the Year Award; the 2013 ISU Achievement Award; the 2010 ISU Distinguished Teacher Award; the 2010 National Association for Girls and Women in Sports Presidential Award; and the 2009 Idaho Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance Outstanding Collegiate Educator Award. In her spare time, she loves to run, hike and ski with her husband and two dogs in the beautiful Idaho mountains.
Drew C. Appleby, PhD, received his BA from Simpson College in 1969 and his PhD from Iowa State University in 1972. During his four-decade career, he chaired the Marian University psychology department, was the director of undergraduate studies in the Indiana University-Purdue University (IUPUI) psychology department and served as the associate dean of the IUPUI Honors College. He used the results of his research on teaching, learning, advising and mentoring to create strategies that enable college students to adapt to their educational environment, acquire academic competence, set realistic goals and achieve their career aspirations. He published over 200 books and articles (including The Savvy Psychology Major); made over 600 professional presentations (including 25 invited keynote addresses); received 44 institutional, regional and national awards for teaching, advising, mentoring and service; and was honored for his contributions to the science and profession of psychology by being named a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Midwestern Psychological Association, and as the 30th distinguished member of Psi Chi. His work with IUPUI's varsity athletes led him to be named “My Favorite Professor” by 71 student-athletes, over 300 of his students have earned graduate degrees in a wide variety of academic and professional fields, and he was designated as a mentor by 777 IUPUI psychology majors, 222 of whom indicated he was their most influential mentor by selecting the following sentence to describe his impact: “This professor influenced the whole course of my life and his effect on me has been invaluable.” Appleby retired from IUPUI with the rank of professor emeritus in 2011.
