How to Get Students to Engage

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In January 2024, I led two training sessions for college professionals on how we can change social norms to increase students' use of campus resources. Participants shared challenges they face getting students to take advantage of tutoring, advising, coaching, workshops, and other supports. Together with my co-presenter, Marisa Vernon White from Lorain County Community College (LCCC), we surfaced ideas for how to increase students’ engagement. With a third session on the horizon, I want to share some ideas that could be implementable on your campus.

3 ways to change social norms

Before we dive in, I must establish the three ways in which people learn and relearn social norms: observation, environment, and communication.

• Observation. First and foremost, we’re visual creatures, and in ambiguous, confusing, stressful, or threatening situations, our instinct is to do what we see. This strategy is often successful, but even when it’s not, following the crowd limits the risk that we could be ostracized for our behavior. This video shows how ingrained one social norm is in our society—queueing—and how that norm can hijack people’s behavior in some very funny ways.
• Environment. We also infer how people behave from evidence in our environment. In one study, people were more than 270 percent more likely to litter in a dirty parking structure versus a clean one. The presence of litter told people that others litter here, making it a social norm. A large part of design is considering how environments deliberately provide social norms. A classic example is to set up classrooms with rows of desks to signal lecture-style learning (e.g., listening, taking notes) versus using round tables to imply group activity.
• Communication. Finally, we communicate norms as a persuasion tactic. In one study, hotel guests were at least 19 percent more likely to reuse their towels when told that other guests did, as opposed to being asked to do so purely for conservation. Colleges have often embraced social norming campaigns to reduce alcohol and other substance use. In our work at Persistence Plus, sharing social norms via text message has driven students to campus resources, including a 50 percent increase in new visits to a food pantry and a 400 percent increase in tutoring use.

Getting students to attend nonmandatory workshops

A learning center director at a Big Ten university wrote to us: “I have developed workshops on study skills, notetaking, time management, test taking, and posttest analysis…. The workshops are not well attended. I try to make them informative and hold them at a time that is relevant during the semester. I have tried different times of the day and different days of the week. Nothing seems to help.”

First, you could make these workshops more observable. A college I work with holds some tutoring hours in common areas between classrooms where all passersby can see. Along with making tutoring more accessible, observation dispels misconceptions about who uses tutoring and establishes new norms. Holding workshops in an open space, like a cafeteria or a green, or yoking them to a student event that already garners large attendance, could help.

White emphasized the importance of harnessing student voice in communications. LCCC asks students what skills or resources they need and then highlights when new opportunities arise from student feedback. Many training participants echoed the need to listen to students and put them in positions to norm help-seeking amongst one another.

Communication about workshops should also come from faculty, advisors, and other student support staff. Several participants discussed the importance of the people who students know and trust at their college endorsing and guiding them to resources, rather than relying on emails, flyers, and syllabi. Making sure everyone is aware of and talks up workshops and other student events can influence student norms around attendance.

Getting students to attend coaching sessions

A program director at a private, liberal arts university shared, “I have a program for first-year students who have been placed on academic probation after the fall semester. For the spring semester, those first-years are matched with an academic coach (upper-class student) for weekly meetings to unpack their experience thus far, identify the success the first-year is looking for, and review study skills and strategies to assist in achieving that success…. But ultimately it does come down to the student to show up.”

White noted that you can norm mentoring programs by starting with group touchpoints. Before asking students to meet one-on-one with a peer mentor, especially someone unfamiliar to them, organize a group event. This gathering can serve many purposes, including making participation in peer mentorship observable, communicating norms around the structure and purpose of those relationships, and feeding a bunch of hungry undergrads.

An important part of the coaching environment to consider is the student chosen as an academic coach. It’s natural that peer-led programs often recruit students who have strong grades, good organizational skills, and other aspirational qualities and accomplishments. But aspirational targets can backfire when students don’t view themselves as capable of similar achievement. Coaches who can share how they worked their way off of academic probation could normalize the process and be much more effective in getting students to engage.

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Applying social norms to more campus challenges

These are just two of several challenges posed by our participants, although most circled around these same issues: getting students to engage with advisors/coaches/resources and attend helpful events. When faced with a similar situation, brainstorming ways to allow for direct observation of student behaviors, change the environment around campus resources, or communicate new norms around help-seeking could persuade more students to take advantage of what you have to offer.