Even minimal student-instructor interactions may increase enjoyment in the classroom: Preliminary evidence that greeting your students may have benefits even if you can’t remember their names

Abstract

Students value rapport with their instructors, and benefit from interacting with them; student-instructor contact is related to persistence, satisfaction, grades, etc. Instructors who wish to build rapport with their students are often encouraged to address their students by name. However, learning names is difficult for many people, and when classes are large, or team-teaching restricts the time spent with a group of students, it is even more difficult. Outside the classroom, even minimal social interactions with strangers (e.g., making eye contact, having a brief chat) can increase feelings of connection. Could minimal social interactions between instructors and students also have benefits? A rapport-building intervention was tested on students in three classes taught by two instructors (N = 352). Compared to students in a control condition and students who were assigned to a greeting condition (a minimal interaction designed to enable instructors to recognize students’ faces) reported a stronger relationship with the instructor, and greater relationship strength predicted greater interest/enjoyment, relatedness and belonging. This novel intervention produced similar results to a more traditional nameboard condition, designed to enable instructors to learn students’ names. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that even when instructors struggle to learn students’ names, they can still build rapport with their students by simply greeting them as they enter class.