"Warm" vs "Harsh" phrasing in student instructions and interactions.

[downer]

We have all heard that using a red pen for grading is bad because it evokes feelings judgment or something like that. But increasingly I am being encouraged to use phrasing when giving instructions to students that won't make them feel bad.

Never say "You must do this" or "This is a requirement". Instead say something like "you are strongly encouraged to do this" or "it would be just terrific if you could do this."

Never use the word "fail."

Presumably this thinking is what led to having a grading scheme that goes C C+ B B+ A. It is just too negative to give students grades of C-, B- and A-.

Well, you can imagine how I feel about all this nonsense. In my day we were happy when our professors told us we were worthless scum, just to get their attention. Kids these days...

I do concede that there are times when it is worth being nice to people. But my first thought is that a lot of this "warm" language changes the meaning of what we want to say. My second thought is that when the students are in their jobs, their bosses are not so likely to be so nice to them. But maybe that depends what the job is.

Has any research ever been done on whether using warmer language makes a difference to student learning?

[Hegemony]

I can certainly vouch for the fact that several harsh instructors discouraged me in my college career. I can remember the first time, in a year-long class I took my freshman year, I hesitantly offered my opinion. The instructor reacted with a very cold rejection of my idea. I did not speak in that class for the remainder of the year.

The examples you give, downer, are not, I think, the most helpful or entirely representative of the options one has when trying to be straightforward but encouraging. (Or, leaving aside my own effort to be straightforward and encouraging, I could just say: I think your examples are crappy and, in a show of bad faith, you're cynically manipulating the possibilities to give the result that you want.)

The fact is that most students are doing some things right, even if other things are wrong, and pointing out the things that are right is genuinely helpful. It helps confirm that they should continue to do those things, as well as assuring them that not 100% of their effort is terrible.

Compare two possible comments on a student paper:

a) Your paper is full of generalities. You're completely lacking in specific examples and no direct quotations. This is inadequate. You can't convince a reader like this. Next time you turn a paper in, do the work first.

or

b) You have some promising general statements in here, which is a good start on a complete argument. The paper would be stronger if you backed up these general statements with specific details and illustrative quotations — those would help the reader see how you came to your general conclusions. So this was a good start but not yet a fully finished paper.

I submit that a comment like b) will better encourage the good students in doing better the next time around, and will be more likely to keep the bad students from feeling offended and contesting their grade.

[fishbrains]

To me, it depends on whether we're talking about instructions/policies or feedback on student work.

For instructions and policies, I always assume I might end up defending myself against a student with sociopathic tendencies, so I don't mince my words. For feedback on student work, I'm quite a bit more warm and fuzzy and encouraging--unless the feedback is regarding plagiarism, which, again, means I might end up defending myself against a student with sociopathic tendencies.

[Ruralguy]

I agree with Fish.  Be specific with assignments and in grading sheme.
Be encouraging in evaluating work, but mention room for i provememt.

There is a lot pf space between , say, a fair grading sustem between 0 and 100 and just giving up and giving A and Bs with non-specific happy talk.

[mamselle]

I apply what one does as a critic to grading:

1. Say what you like first- emphasizing whatever is positive strong, valuable, and of interest to the viewer/listener/reader/audience.
2. Say what you don't like - kindly, but clearly, being as definite as in no. 1, but never sarcastic or snide.
3. Say why - with reasoned, thoughtful phrases that indicate you took the work seriously on its own terms.

Balanced, steady, no imputation of ill will or intentional malice, but clear, so they can correct their course and go further next time.

M.

[jerseyjay]

I agree with Fish. I have never heard (in English) that you should soften instructions. (In Spanish, it is often considered rude to be too emphatic. I will often phrase things as deberia hacer algo instead of debe hacer algo : you should do something instead of you must do something. In Spanish--or at least where I have lived--it is also considered rude to force somebody to be explicitly negative, so Spanish is considered a high-context language. In my experience, many Americans are not very good at reading between the lines and need to be told things explicitly.)

However, in feedback, I try to say something nice. I have been told to say something two positive things to one negative thing. I almost always begin my feedback with something like, "There are many good ideas here and you raise some interesting questions......"

I have taken to doing my peer reviews in a similar method: a paragraph or two of what I like about a paper, and then criticisms.

[downer]

I like the distinction between instructions and feedback. Would the IRS get better results if they phrased their forms in more friendly language? I doubt it. It's good to be very clear about instructions. There is a debate to be had about how flexible to be about deadlines and other requirements. Some flexibility is probably good in some cases, but often it is not doing a student a favor to be very flexible.

There are big questions about how best to give back feedback, and many students do like to feel that their professors care about them. I'm still curious whether this has been measured in terms of student learning. But it seems likely students do better if they feel more comfortable in a class and they have some connection with their professor.

For me, the issue is having administrators with rather little teaching experience and a lot of preconceptions that they learned in some education class telling faculty how to teach. Increasingly often I get half-assed recommendations from these people about how to think about my teaching.

I can see the issue from the admin's point of view: lots of faculty who phone it in, who don't adapt to a changing student population, who stand out in front of the class and read out from a textbook. They want faculty to meet students' needs. That makes sense. But there's a big question about how to get faculty to do that. And generally my impression is that administrators are pretty bad at it. Using warm language in instructions is one example of stupid advice. Insisting that faculty think about teaching purely in terms of Bloom's taxonomy of action verbs is another.

There's also an issue of admin's hopeful idealism about what can be achieved, when the higher ed system is largely broken. One of the reasons for the failures of universities is that it has become necessary to hire so many administrators. They can cheerlead all they like about their vision for the future, but it doesn't address more fundamental problems.

There's some good discussion of faculty pushback in this IHE article:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/03/faculty-face-uphill-battle-adapting-needs-todays-students

[kaysixteen]

Random thoughts, questions, and observations:

1) who is 'encouraging' you to make such changes in verbiage?   What is your responsibility to heed such encouragement, and what would happen to you if you did not do so, even if you did not actually tell the encourager to take a long walk off a short pier?

2) I get the need to not annihilate the student in one's feedback, but what if the paper/ test is, well... ahem, crap?  This is especially a question if the student appears not to have given a damn, tried, etc., has not been coming to class, is disruptive or inattentive in class, etc., but even if he isn't, the paper really might well have little if anything positive to mention about it.

3) The real world is a tough place.  It is not particularly fond of nor hospitable for entitled snowflakes who think that their feelings and pleasure should be of paramount import.  And, like it or not, sometimes, well... that military-style 'come to Jesus' chat is more or less exactly what is called for.

[Hegemony]

2) I get the need to not annihilate the student in one's feedback, but what if the paper/ test is, well... ahem, crap?  This is especially a question if the student appears not to have given a damn, tried, etc., has not been coming to class, is disruptive or inattentive in class, etc., but even if he isn't, the paper really might well have little if anything positive to mention about it.

In which case, just saying "This paper does not meet the requirements of length or contents" is fine. But there's no need to say it's crap, or to insult the student. And I find that erring on the side of kindness sometimes pays dividends. When I give an assignment of six pages on a novel, and the student turns in two pages on the first chapter of the novel, in addition to "This paper does not meet the requirements of length or contents," I write something like, "Perhaps you're having a hard term, or you ran out of time?" Frequently I won't get any response, and probably the student did just manage their time badly or not care or whatever. But sometimes they come and say they appreciate being offered a bit of grace, and tell me in floods of tears that their boyfriend was killed in a car accident, or that their mother is in the hospital, or that they were sexually assaulted several weeks before and have only just been holding it together and trying to soldier on and keep from dropping it out. (All of these have happened in recent years.) I don't change their grade, and they don't ask for it to be changed. But erring on the side of kindness maybe is not such a bad thing.

[downer]

1) who is 'encouraging' you to make such changes in verbiage?   What is your responsibility to heed such encouragement, and what would happen to you if you did not do so, even if you did not actually tell the encourager to take a long walk off a short pier?

At this stage, it is just deans making suggestions, so it isn't a huge deal. It fits in with what other people have said about deans encouraging faculty to be accommodating to student needs in the pandemic, and now the endemic.

The people on short term contracts, there is a question of what it takes to get a contract renewed. I have heard a chair say that he didn't want to rehire people when students had complained about those people.

[Caracal]

To me, it depends on whether we're talking about instructions/policies or feedback on student work.

For instructions and policies, I always assume I might end up defending myself against a student with sociopathic tendencies, so I don't mince my words. For feedback on student work, I'm quite a bit more warm and fuzzy and encouraging--unless the feedback is regarding plagiarism, which, again, means I might end up defending myself against a student with sociopathic tendencies.

I only use the imperative when I really mean it in instructions. "You must treat other students with respect" is fine. On the other hand, it seems weird to say "the paper must have a clear thesis statement." Obviously it does not and many of them won't. It "should have a clear thesis statement" and if it doesn't it won't get a great grade. When I read a whole document filled with musts that isn't from the IRS, I start to get my hackles up, even if there's nothing objectionable about the substance of what is being asked.

[Hegemony]

The way I phrase it in instructions is something like "A good paper will have a clear thesis supported by details from the text..." and so on. Just to give them something to check when they're wondering "Did I do this right?"

[kaysixteen]

I didn't actually say I was going to tell the kid 'this paper is crap'... what I am going to do is tell him what is wrong with it, without lying to him and calling crap gold.   And if the reason that it is crap appears to be that he has been goofing off, being disruptive or inattentive in class, obviously not doing the reading, etc., well then my comments *ought* to reflect that as well.   I do him no favors by sugarcoating things and allowing him to believe that he can continue such performance without real consequences.

[Caracal]

I didn't actually say I was going to tell the kid 'this paper is crap'... what I am going to do is tell him what is wrong with it, without lying to him and calling crap gold.   And if the reason that it is crap appears to be that he has been goofing off, being disruptive or inattentive in class, obviously not doing the reading, etc., well then my comments *ought* to reflect that as well.   I do him no favors by sugarcoating things and allowing him to believe that he can continue such performance without real consequences.

1. I tend to try to be nicer if the paper or exam shows signs that the student has tried. If a student is putting in effort but struggling, I don't want to beat them up and discourage them. I want to highlight the things they can build on, while also making sure they know what the problems are. If a student has obviously phoned the thing in, I don't bother pretending there's anything good about it.

2. When I'm grading, I'm not making moral judgements. My job is to grade the paper, tell the student why they got the grade they did, and provide feedback about how to improve. I don't think its effective or appropriate to lecture students about why they didn't do a good job. Of course, if a student doesn't do something we discussed in class or didn't follow the instructions, I'll say that, but it is up to the student to draw their own conclusions about what to do in the future.

3. If a student wants to come and talk to me about how they can improve, and I've noticed they aren't coming to class, or paying attention, then I would discuss that with them and try to get a sense of what's going on.

[apl68]

In my long-ago grad student grading days I recall a prof telling me that when all else failed one could always speak of a paper's "potential" in order to have something positive in the feedback.