A new study by Mitchell Campbell, Kevin Kennedy, Andrea Miller, and IDS Executive Director Markus Brauer suggests that a small, low-cost change in university classrooms can make a meaningful difference for students’ academic success and well-being, especially for those from marginalized backgrounds.
The study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, tested a simple “Inclusivity Page” added to course syllabi at a large midwestern public university. The one-page insert encouraged students to engage in inclusive behaviors, highlighted that most peers value diversity, and emphasized the benefits of working across differences. Instructors were asked to briefly introduce the page and comment on it for about two minutes on the first day of class.
The inclusivity page was developed using a “social marketing” approach, which uses lessons from commercial marketing, psychology, and public health to design behavior-change strategies based on input from the target audience. Before creating the materials, the research team conducted focus groups and surveys to understand campus climate and identify barriers to inclusion. For more information on the research behind social marketing interventions, see Brauer, Dumesnil, and Campbell (2021). Students from marginalized groups reported that exclusion rather than overt discrimination was the most common problem, and it often showed up in everyday interactions like group work in class, for example. Students from non-marginalized groups reported not knowing what inclusive behaviors were, being unsure what their peers thought about diversity, and being unaware of the numerous benefits of behaving inclusively.
The study followed nearly 1,800 students across dozens of courses using a randomized controlled trial. The analyses compared students in the treatment courses, where the instructors added the inclusivity page to their syllabus students, to students in control classrooms where the syllabus did not contain such a page. Results showed that students from marginalized groups in the treatment courses felt a greater sense of belonging and earned better grades. More precisely, first- and second-year students from underrepresented racial groups earned higher course grades and, later, had higher cumulative GPAs than similar students in control courses. For students who were freshmen at the time of the intervention, the GPA boost was more than a third of a grade point. For sophomores, it was over a fifth of a grade point.
There are several possible reasons why the grade benefits didn’t extend to older students, but according to the researchers the most likely explanation is that it is more difficult to change both cumulative GPAs and approaches to schoolwork later in students’ college careers, even if their peers treat them more inclusively.
Beyond grades, the intervention also narrowed gaps in sense of belonging, emotional and physical health, and intentions to stay in college between marginalized and non-marginalized students. Among all students, the intervention also led to slightly more positive attitudes toward people from different backgrounds.
Brauer says “This work fills a need for a more systematic approach to how we design college classrooms. Instead of teaching students from marginalized groups how to function in a priori non-supportive environment, we should focus on how we create inclusive classrooms.” The findings suggest that fostering inclusion does not require intensive training or lengthy programs. Instead, carefully designed, context-sensitive messages, especially when delivered early in college, can help create classrooms where more students feel they belong and can succeed.