Choose your lecture seat carefully! Aidan McGowan, John Bush Computer Science Queens University Belfast

Where to sit ? Seating position in university lectures is commonly linked with student grade performance. Sitting at the front of lecture theatre is commonly reported to have a positive effect on final grade.

The academically best are at the front Conclude that higher grades are achieved by the regular front row occupants because the academically best able students tend to voluntarily position themselves there (Benedict and Hoag 2004; Holliman and Anderson 1986; Pedersen 1994).

Other factors Attendance (Stires, 1980) Attention (Schwebel, 1972) Motivation (Burda, 1996) Generally they suggest that those that sit at the front are indeed the best attenders, most attentive and motivated

Challenge… However, the convention that the best students are to be found at the front was challenged by Perkins (2005). In that seating experiment seats where randomly allocated to the students. Illustrating the generalised pattern of degradation of final grade the further back the students sat. This would suggest that there are other factors affecting performance and seating than simply student ability or positive attitudes.

Better learning experience Active participation of students in a lecture with a more positive learning experience and resulting in a strong positive influence on attention and long-term memory storage. Students that sit up front are generally less inhibited at asking questions and are able to make better eye contact with the lecturer and are regularly the most participative (Cuseo 2007). Better visibility Better able to hear regardless of ability or engagement perhaps the students that sit at the front may simply have a better learning experience and consequently end up with better grades

Other factors … Late to class and the front happens to be all that is available Friends are sitting Habit / tradition

Gaps in the research The methodology employed in most of the seating studies involved students being restricted to the same seat for all lectures. It is arguable that this control restriction improperly influences the research outcomes. It also follows that any temporal factors that may influence a student to change seats could not be accessed or reported on in these studies.

Research questions Does seating position affect student performance? Do the most academically able and engaged students regularly sit at the front of lecture theatres?

Methodology Cohort of 94 post graduate students taking a compulsory modules in Java programming in semesters one and two of a one year MSc course in Software Development In this research the students were allowed to sit wherever they wished and were free to move seats throughout the 24 week programme

Recording seating

Questions ..? Who sits where ? Academic ability, engagement, prior subject knowledge. Academic performance between and within groups.

Analysis – best academics at the front ?   Front Middle Back Some programming experience 22.0% (9) 48.8% (20) 29.2% (12) No programming experience 26.0% (13) 58.0% (29) 16.0% (8)

Analysis – most engaged at the front ?

Analysis – best scores at the front ? Generally the best scores are from the front and then scores degrade

Within groups Some prior programming experience group Overall assessment scores in comparison with seating zones and previous degree classifications. The top and least engaged student groups’ seating overall assessment score.   Some prior programming experience group No prior programming experience group Front rows 79.58% (8) 70.49% (12) Other rows 70.06% (33) 67.46% (38)

What’s the significance ?   Overall assessment score Standard Deviation Front rows 75.11% 19.24 Other rows (middle and back) 68.18% 21.63 To test the statistical significance of the assessment scores from the students in the two seating zones groups (front and other) an analysis using an Independent-Samples T Test was conducted. It revealed that despite the small sample sizes involved that the difference between scores achieved by the front row students and the other students was approaching statistical significance (p=0.059, t=1.900, df=180).