Reference List Entry:

Cooper, Katelyn M., Brian Haney, Anna Krieg, and Sara E. Brownell. 2017. "What’s in a Name? The Importance of Students Perceiving That an Instructor Knows Their Names in a High-Enrollment Biology Classroom." CBE—Life Sciences Education 16 (1): ar8. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-08-0265.

About this Journal Article:

Cooper et al. have been cited in several recent publications about fostering relationships in college. The authors suggest that using nameplates to facilitate addressing students by name leads to relationship gains, even if faculty wouldn’t otherwise remember students’ names. Cooper et al. studied a high-enrollment biology class in which instructors used active-learning strategies and asked students to use name tents – folded card stock on which students wrote their names. At the end of the semester, the instructors could name approximately half of their students when looking at a deidentified photo roster, but 78% of the students surveyed thought the instructors knew their names (5). Moreover 23% of the students indicated that instructors knowing their names contributed to student-instructor relationships (7). 

Annotation contributed by Dr. Buffie Longmire-Avital