Encouraging active (equitable) participation

This literature review was prepared by Dr. Olga Kozar, 2022.

Student factors
(Weaver & Qi, 2005) observe that most students tend to be passive participants. Some (referred
to as ‘Para-participants’) only initiate contact before and after class.
Negative participants are “those who monopolize the discussion and go off on tangents or those
who become disagreeable”.
One of the reasons why students do not participate is fear of peer disapproval. “Students may
perceive that they will miss out on important class content due to another student's question or
comment” (Loftin, Davis, & Hartin, 2010, p. 120).
Other reasons for not participating (regardless of L1):
- Student personality (Murphy, Eduljee, Croteau, & Parkman, 2017)
- Lack of preparedness and not enough time to clearly formulate their thoughts
(Fassinger, 1995)
- Feeling nervous about speaking in front of the class (Ahmad, 2021)
- Cultural norms (Wu, 2015) and the desire to maintain one’s cultural identify (worrying
about ‘acting White’ (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986).
Class size matters
The larger the class size, the more reluctant university students tend to be to participate
(Cornelius, Gray, & Constantinople, 1990; Monks & Schmidt, 2011), especially women
(Crawford & MacLeod, 1990).
Gender matters
It’s important to know that some studies report that men tend to participate more than expected
based on the class composition (Aguillon et al., 2020). For example, men were strongly
overrepresented in voluntary responses after small-group discussions. It means that employing
active learning strategies alone may not be enough to achieve equitable participation by all
students. This is consistent with prior reports that males, especially white males), tend to be
more likely to take the ‘conversational floor’ in the classroom (Sadker&Sadker, 1990).
Also, early studies on the effect of gender on classroom participation found that same-gender
dyads (e.g. male teachers- male students) tend to have higher quality interaction rates than
different-gender dyads (Bruce, 1995; Worthington & Stern, 1985).
Ethnicity matters
Students of racial minorities, for example, non-white students in English-speaking countries,
tend to speak less during university classes than white students (Eliason & Turalba, 2019;
Yaylacı & Beauvais, 2017).
Age matters
Older, nontraditional students (25 years and older) speak up and participate more than their
younger counterparts (Howard & Henney, 1998)
L1 matters
L2 students tend to participate in the classroom less mostly due to lacking confidence
(Rachel Zhou, Knoke, & Sakamoto, 2005).
In L2-only classrooms with relatively similar levels of English, students may be reluctant to
speak for the following reasons
- foreign language anxiety(Chun, 2014; Lee, 2009; M. Liu & Jackson, 2008), especially
being self-conscious about one’s pronunciation (Ahmad, 2021)
- low confidence in ability to speak without prior planning
- prior history of ‘teachers’ error treatment techniques’ (N.-F. Liu & Littlewood, 1997)
Similarly, (MOUSAPOUR & Nabavizadeh, 2012) find that L2 students’ reluctance to talk might
be due to lacking confidence, a perceived vocabulary deficit and gender.

Teaching factors
Strategies like creating a warm classroom climate(Salter & Persaud, 2003), raising awareness of
common participation barriers(Eliason & Turalba, 2019), providing sufficient resources, using
technology like clickers(Filer, 2010) explicit training and advice have been shown to improve
classroom participation (Fikadu, 2020).
It might also help to raise students’ awareness that students who participate more in the
classroom discussions tend to get higher grades. For example (Precourt & Gainor, 2019) report
that students who participated in the discussions performed 25% better on the final exam.
Using active learning strategies
A large body of research shows that employing active learning strategies and shortening the time
between content delivery and practice has a positive impact on student participation (as well as
their outcomes)(Krusche, Seitz, Börstler, & Bruegge, 2017)
Wait time matters
Wait time (Rowe, 1986) refers to the time between a question and a follow-up (either answering
the question or further prompts). Most teachers, including university teachers, would benefit
from extending their ‘natural’ wait time, which tends to be short, to longer pauses to allow for
students to think deeper and/or volunteer to respond (Tobin, 1987). It can be especially true
when teaching students from some cultures where silence is more accepted, like Chinese or
Japanese students (Kim, Ates, Grigsby, Kraker, & Micek, 2016; Mak, 2011).
Teacher self-disclosure
Moderate amount of teacher self-disclosure can positive impact classroom participation
(Cayanus, 2004; Goldstein & Benassi, 1994) as it tends to build rapport, reduce power
differentials and make students feel more comfortable in the classroom thanks to interpersonal
and reciprocity effects.
Self-disclosure, even when it’s done via external tools, like Facebook, seems to result in higher
perceived credibility (Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds, 2009), so teachers are commonly advised to
share some appropriate personal details with their students.
Teacher immediacy (communication style)
Teacher verbal and nonverbal immediacy that is signalling willingness to communicate via such
methods as gesturing, varying voice pitch and tempo, smiling, leaning towards students, body
position, etc, have a direct correlation with student willingness to participate in the class
discussion (Christensen, 1995; Menzel & Carrell, 1999). However, it’s important to be cautious
with exuberant praise (see the next point).
Avoiding exuberant praise and creating unequal ‘classroom status’
Using exuberant praise like ‘'Perfect!', 'What a fabulous answer!', 'Yes. You got it. Absolutely!’
can decrease student participation as can inadvertently signal to the rest of the students that it is
impossible to build on or exceed on this 'wonderful' response (Tanner, 2013). It can also elevate
the status of students willing to participate early in the discussion (Cohen, 1994).
Cold calling
Cold calling is a controversial practice. On the one hand, it can cause anxiety among some
students (England, Brigati, & Schussler, 2017). On the other hand, cold calling has been shown
to increase participation, learning and even lead to more voluntary responses with time
(Dallimore, Hertenstein, & Platt, 2013).
Mitigating anxiety-producing effects of cold calling (Doty, Geraets, Wan, Saitta, & Chini, 2020)
- Using ‘error framing’ in response to students’ answers, e.g. encouraging students to
notice and identify errors as a learning tool (Doty et al., 2020)
- Scaffolding and building on what students knew (even if they couldn’t answer the full
question) (Doty et al., 2020)
- Inviting other students to assist (Doty et al., 2020)
- Neutral responses with explanations “I think that whether you were right or wrong like
there was always an explanation. So, I mean, it's like when I was wrong like you didn't
feel like it.”
- Using student names (Doty et al., 2020)
- Calling on student groups (Doty et al., 2020)
- Providing ‘thinking time’ before cold calling (see wait time research) (Doty et al., 2020)

Cold-calling is more acceptable to students if they are warned beforehand about it (Dallimore,
Hertenstein, & Platt, 2004).
Some instructors use ‘notecards’ technique for cold calling (Broeckelman-Post, Johnson, & Reid
Schwebach, 2016)
Using open questions
When it comes to students with low English levels, using open referential questions encourages
higher quality and quantity of student output compared to closed-display questions, which,
despite their limited effectiveness, can be valuable as a means to follow-up and clarify
(Hlatshwayo, 2015)
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