Lecturer’s Blog 3: Norms in the online classroom by Juliette de Wit

Something was bugging me a couple of months ago. In some of my online classes, students displayed behaviour that I wasn’t familiar with from previous, onsite, teaching experiences. It wasn’t their blank screens or inactivity—I’d already gotten used to that by then—but different kinds of behaviour that had taken me aback. I therefore reached out to my colleagues, and posed the following question in the department app: “A question out of curiosity: (how) do you deal with students that lie in their bed while attending tutorials? Or other things that would normally not prevail in class, such as smoking?” Unintentionally, my question had provoked a discussion with a wide variety of responses. Some of them were comforting, whereas others hilarious and mentioned even more “extreme” examples: some colleagues had encountered students in bathrobes, without shirts, burping in their unmuted microphones, and the list goes on. At least I wasn’t the only one that was experiencing such issues with her (or his) students.

Although I had received several useful suggestions from my colleagues (thank you for this!), the situation got me thinking about social norms in the online classroom. Could they give a reasonable explanation for the behaviours I’d encountered? And if so, what are the options if we would like to increase student engagement online?

At this point it might be useful to give a short introduction into my background: I am a fourth-year PhD student that rolled into a teaching position and teaches various courses in the EEF and GEM department. Having a background in both economics and philosophy, I wanted to research social constructs—such as social norms, values and identity—in empirical economic applications. So that’s what I did.

I found out that social norms are everywhere. In economics, we often encounter norms in social dilemma games as they help a group to overcome free-rider problems. Well-known examples are norms of fairness, promise-keeping, or against littering. But also in the classroom, there are social norms that guide behaviour; think of being quiet while the lecturer speaks, no eating during class, or raising your hand when you have a question. Norms are unwritten rules that guide behaviour in a group or community. The idea is that, in a situation without norms, we are inclined to defect from cooperation. We would, for example, throw our trash on the street or break our promises to our own advantage. When norms are present, the payoffs change: defecting becomes more costly than complying, which is why we are motivated to conform to the norm. These costs arise because we expect that other people in our group will cooperate, as well as that we expect that others expect us to cooperate as well. Expectations therefore matter, as they motivate us to conform to the norm (see Bicchieri (2006) or de Wit & Lisciandra (2020) for more details).

To follow a social norm, it is key that we are aware of the unwritten rules that apply to a certain situation. Often, we learn these rules through inference or social cues. We observe, for example, that other people throw their trash in a bin or, when littering, we receive a nasty look that tells us that we’re doing something wrong. This also applies to the classroom. The classroom comes with a set of rules that students learn throughout primary and secondary school, and which come in handy when entering university. With some small alternations, the majority of students know what is expected of them. Students that do not know, will learn through inference—observing the behaviour of other students—or by social cues—from either the teacher or other students—in class.

So how does this translate to an online environment where 1) students are following online classes remotely, and 2) a large group of students has never experienced onsite teaching at university?

The academic literature gives some suggestions, as studies have shown that peer influence and socialization of attitudes and behaviour play an important role for adolescents (i.e. students) both off- and online. Moreover, students’ online behaviour is shaped by both their offline experiences, as well as by the online context (Mikami & Szwedo, 2014; Nesi, Choukas-Bradley, & Prinstein, 2018). Other studies show that students are more likely to participate in activities if these activities are valued by the group and group members expect others to participate (Zhou, 2011). A sense of belonging to the online group can strengthen this effect.

What can we learn from this? From my point of view, it tells us that also in online education, social norms play an important role in the involvement and participation of students. However, in practice this works a bit differently than what we are used to. The expectations that normally steer compliance in the classroom (towards and of other students) are difficult to observe in an online setting where we hardly see one another. Especially groups that miss the onsite experience may not know how to behave in an online setting. It is up to us as teachers to make clear what our expectations are such that these might become a social norm. This can be quite challenging if we also factor in that students have much more distractions at home than they would have “normally” in class. Moreover, norm setting can go either way. For example, webcams that are turned off will result in more webcams that are turned off if there is no cue that such behaviour is unwanted. On the other hand, groups where the majority participates from the start tend to do a better job if that behaviour is (positively) reinforced.

To show how norms affect student engagement in practice, I would like to use an example from my experiences. In block 2.1 and 2.2 I taught various tutorial groups in two different courses. Many of the group compositions changed between block 2.1 and 2.2, but one group hardly changed. Last week I noticed that this group in particular is doing really well in terms of participation, involvement, but also in terms of learning in class. I might be wrong, but I think the success of this group has largely to do with the fact that they know what is expected from them, as well as that they expect their group members to participate and be involved in class. That students know each other, positively reinforces this mechanism.

Having devoted some time to explaining the mechanisms behind social norm compliance off- and online, here are some suggestions which I believe to be useful if you want to increase student engagement in an online setting:

1. Manage expectations. Set clear norms from the start and stick to them, refer to them in each class before you start;
2. Recreate social cues by making unspoken rules spoken (“I see that many of you …”, or “Peter and Marie, please turn on your webcam so that I can see you”);
3. Mimic onsite class room behaviour: applaud for presentations, let students raise their hands and orally ask their questions, rather than only using the chat functionality;
4. Create a sense of belonging to the group. This might sound wishy washy, but actually comes down to taking time to get to know each other, to ask students how they’re doing, to ask them to upload a profile picture or turn on their webcam. Giving students responsibilities (for chairing a discussion, giving feedback, etc.) or a say in what you do in class (which aspects do you like and which not?) can have a similar purpose, as they feel more involved;
5. Incite expectations towards other students by making participation visible: ask students to give written feedback to each other in a shared document, or to write their answers on a slide. That way, students see that others participate which is likely to motivate them to do so as well.

Some of the suggestions imply that we need to meet some preconditions (see points 1, 2 and 4) before we can actually start with our teaching tasks. This takes time, but might make learning more effective and fun. In my opinion, the online environment challenges us to meet these preconditions, but also invites us to rethink the way we teach. I hope this blog has somehow inspired you to do just that!

The next teaching blog will be written by Marijke Leliveld. She coordinates one of the courses that I’m involved in, and I very much enjoy working with and learning from her. I look forward to read more about your take on teaching, Marijke!