‘Teacher’s pets’ in the front row really do get better grades

There may be some truth to the old stereotypes of the teacher’s pet sitting in the front row and the class clown lounging at the back. 

Research in four Hong Kong universities has found a “significant relationship between university students’ seating location and their academic performance”. The study, published in Higher Education Research & Development, tracked 182 students at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Hong Kong Baptist University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) over the course of 2019, using a mobile app to measure participants’ attendance, seating location and performance in multiple-choice tests. All the surveyed classrooms had traditional lecture theatre layouts.

In the multiple-choice tests, students in “soft” disciplines who sat closest to the lecturer achieved near-perfect scores, while those seated furthest away got below 25 per cent. A similar trend was observed in “hard” disciplines, although the drop was less drastic – from about 70 per cent to 50 per cent. “Soft” fields included nursing, religion and philosophy, while engineering, land surveying and geoinformatics were among the “hard” subjects.

Charles Wong, associate head (academic) of PolyU’s department of land surveying and geoinformatics and one of the paper’s co-authors, told Times Higher Education that “seating location is one of the indicators of student engagement”.

“Teachers may think that sitting in the front probably relates to a high level of interaction, thus academic performance,” he said.

The authors recommend that seating arrangements are “tailored to academic disciplines to maximise their efficacy”. This is already happening at some institutions: at HKU, some classrooms have televisions embedded into the walls and portable teaching stations, “both of which facilitate small-group discussions”.

More straightforward solutions can be effective, too. “Our study suggests that round tables and moveable furniture could improve students’ engagement and learning outcomes,” Dr Wong said. “The more teachers can move around the room and interact with students, the better.” 

Peter Barrett, emeritus professor of property and construction management at the University of Salford, and an expert in classroom design, said the Hong Kong research “throws light on a crucial question: the ‘fit’ between space and pedagogy”.

“The paper raises challenging questions about taken-for-granted approaches to higher education in many universities and many subjects,” he said.  

However, the Hong Kong researchers say that academics should not take for granted that the best pupils are in the front.  “Teachers should abandon the thought that sitting at the front guarantees students’ high level of academic performance,” they conclude. “Their negative bias towards students sitting at the back of a classroom could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

joyce.lau@timeshighereducation.com