Contacts Between Students And Faculty¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 2 studies (2 causal), q3 · 0 of 2 report an effect size

Description¶

Contact between students and faculty is the first of Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: frequent student–faculty interaction in and out of class, in person and online. It is carried out through responsive teaching presence — timely feedback, accessible office hours, active facilitation of discussion, informal check-ins, and mentorship — rather than through mere availability.

Design Implications¶

Interaction quality matters more than quantity: contacts that convey personal interest and intellectual investment predict motivation, persistence, and achievement, while perfunctory contact does not Astin's longitudinal data show student–faculty interaction strongly predicts satisfaction and retention. [+S]. Frequent low-stakes contact also builds students' sense of belonging, which mediates persistence, especially for first-generation and underrepresented students Belonging interventions improve academic outcomes. [+M]. In online settings, instructor presence is the strongest lever: teaching presence (facilitation, direct instruction, prompt feedback) is the CoI dimension most consistently associated with perceived learning Teaching presence in online courses supports perceived learning and satisfaction. [+M].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Multiple, low-barrier channels for contact: office hours (in person and virtual), email norms with stated response times, discussion forums with instructor participation
• Instructor behaviors that signal approachability: learning names, early-semester check-ins, personalized feedback
• Structured occasions for interaction: class discussion, conferences, mentoring meetings
• Institutional support: reasonable advising loads, class sizes that permit individual contact

Constraints¶

• Large-enrollment courses make individualized contact impractical; scaling via TAs or automated messaging dilutes the effect unless messages are personalized [~M]
• Mandatory or performative contact (e.g., required office-hour visits with no purpose) can feel surveilling and reduce trust [-W]
• Instructor responsiveness that is slow or inconsistent is worse for belonging than no promised channel at all — unmet expectations of contact damage perceived care [-M]
• Contact alone, without intellectual substance (feedback on ideas, challenge, mentorship), does not improve outcomes; social familiarity is not pedagogy [~M]

Implementation Variability¶

• In-class: cold-calling with warmth, mid-lecture questions, one-minute papers responded to publicly
• One-on-one: early-semester intake meetings, feedback conferences, 5-minute writing conferences
• Online: video announcements, active discussion facilitation, personalized audio/video feedback, predictable response-time commitments
• Structural: undergraduate research advising, first-year seminars, learning-community faculty affiliation

Target Learners¶

• First-year and first-generation students, who benefit most from normalizing faculty contact and building belonging early Belonging interventions improve academic outcomes. [+M]
• At-risk or struggling students, for whom early contact enables timely intervention
• Online learners, who otherwise experience isolation and attrition at higher rates Teaching presence in online courses supports perceived learning and satisfaction. [+M]
• Advanced students seeking mentorship, research opportunities, and career guidance

Target Learning Goals¶

• Persistence, motivation, and engagement outcomes more than discrete content objectives
• Academic socialization: learning disciplinary norms and expectations through dialogue
• Feedback-responsive revision and self-regulated learning

Instructions¶

1. Establish contact norms in the syllabus: response times, office-hour availability, and preferred channels.
2. Run an early-semester check-in with each student or a sample of the class to open a channel before problems arise.
3. Facilitate class discussion actively rather than lecturing monologically; use student names and reference their prior contributions.
4. Return feedback quickly and personally; where volume prevents individual comments, use whole-class synthesized feedback plus targeted individual notes.
5. Maintain a visible online teaching presence (announcements, forum participation) so asynchronous students experience equivalent contact Teaching presence in online courses supports perceived learning and satisfaction. [+M].
6. Escalate to individual outreach when engagement drops — a brief personal message outperforms an automated warning.

Related Strategies¶

• Check-ins — the lightweight recurring contact that keeps channels open between formal assessments
• Active listening — the conversational skill that makes brief contacts feel substantive
• Action-oriented feedback — the highest-value form of contact: individualized, forward-looking response to student work
• Escalating multi-channel contact immediately upon missed assessment, starting with SMS
• Establish an inter-institutional, society-level mentorship registry providing continuous support from undergraduate entry through faculty appointment

Examples¶

• First-year seminars (e.g., the AAC&U High-Impact Practices framework) — small classes with intensive faculty interaction are among the best-documented retention interventions.
• Online discussion facilitation in Canvas or Moodle courses — instructors who post weekly synthesis messages and reply substantively to students sustain teaching presence at scale.
• Writing conferences — brief one-on-one meetings on drafts, which convert grading into dialogue and model revision thinking.

Key Sources¶

• Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 39(7), 3–7.
• Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. Jossey-Bass.
• Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities.
• Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Facilitating cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133–148. doi:10.1207/s15389286ajde1903_2
• Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447–1451. doi:10.1126/science.1198364