The Disconnect in the Use and Purpose of the Syllabus Between Faculty and Students is REAL

Abstract

The syllabus is a carefully crafted document which faculty rely on to inform students of expectations, deadlines and policies for their course. Throughout the course of the COVID‐19 pandemic there was growing evidence that students were not using the syllabus as intended and were looking elsewhere to locate important course information which often led to confusion, delays in beginning assignments and other missteps. The objective of this study was to investigate the disconnect between how students and faculty use the syllabus. To ensure inclusive representation, 20 different institutions from community college through professional school, private and public, from diverse regions of the USA were invited to participate in the study. A short 18 question survey with Likert scale, multiple choice, rank order and open response questions was created in Qualtrics. The invited faculty were emailed an invitation for students, a student survey link and a faculty survey link. Six faculty from 4y undergraduate universities (50%), community college (17%), private undergraduate professional school (17%), and medical school (17%) completed the survey. There were 162 student responses from community college (54%), public 4y undergraduate universities (46.4%), and medical school (.6%). Students identified as female (80.3%), male (19.1%) and other (0.6%). When asked What is a syllabus? a few students stated it is a learning tool (8%), a contract between faculty and student (19%), while the majority (73%) said both. However, most students agreed (60%) that the syllabus should be flexible, which contradicts the definition of the syllabus as a contract. Students (86%) agreed that the faculty keep the syllabus up to date which correlates with the faculty surveyed (100%) who stated they kept their syllabus up to date. Student use of the syllabus was demonstrated when over half agreed (59%) that they reached out to the faculty when they had a question orconcern in regard to the syllabus. Further investigation into the utilization of the syllabus was elucidated when students were asked to rank‐order items in the syllabus based on importance. The number one ranked item, defined as most important, was deadlines (45%), followed by faculty contact information (22%), textbook (13%), grading criteria (12%), attendance (6%). Few students selected extra credit (1%), late policy (1%), or exam late policy (0.5%). Yet evidence of the disconnect was shown when we asked students In your LMS, where do you most often look for assignment deadlines? only (9%) of students use the syllabus and instead looked at modules (33%), calendars (28%), assignments (21%) and gradebook (9%) for the deadlines. Students (92%) reported they preferred reminders of deadlines from the faculty and most (90%) wanted notifications sent to their phones which eliminates the use of the syllabus. In conclusion the disconnect between students and faculty is real as students are not using the syllabus as intended. Student and faculty focus groups will be held to investigate this issue more deeply.