Does where you sit in class correlate with your grade?

[Randomnity]

(I think this is aimed more at college since high schools often have assigned seats and much smaller classrooms)

Ran across this old blog article, some of you may have seen it before: http://wonderingpondering.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/classroom-seating-plan-personality-profile/

Basically a prof got his/her students to sign into their seats all year, and correlated their GPA with their seating location. Kinda cool, although it's only one class of course.

So where did you usually sit in class? What was your GPA? did where you sit in class correlate with classes you did better or worse in?

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For me: my preferred spot in undergrad classes I liked/wanted to pay attention in was between 1/3 and 2/3 of the way back, in the middle next to an aisle seat or if I was "not early" which was often, on the sides of the room. In classes that didn't require me to pay attention (I guess I was going in the hopes that something would sink through my brain anyway ) I'd be either in the very back row so nobody could see my computer screen, or in a very large class, about 2/3 of the way back so I can still see the board, but on the side of the room.

Grad classes are a lot smaller. Here I usually sit in the back row, if I can.

The classes I did worst in were biochem and microbiology, and I don't think I sat differently in those classes, except for skipping at least 1/2 the classes for each. The most relevant factor was how interesting the class was.

edit: oh and I graduated with the GPA equivalent of A- overall, with classes ranging from C to A+, mostly just a few low classes destroying my GPA (An A+ gets you 10/10 towards your GPA...a C gets you a 4/10, so it ruins the average).

 

[entropie]

yes, it's hard to concentrate when your frind plays a godlike joke on someone in class and godlike jobs are best played from the back.

I did better in classes I sat in 1st row, but I never sat down in 1st row by my own choosing

 

[guesswho]

Obviously..

 

[Randomnity]

Obviously..

If it's obvious, what is the correlation that you see?

How is the correlation changed by social groups, if at all?

 

[entropie]

H meant "obviously" judging by my writing style. He's a mean man

 

[chickpea]

i usually sit in the middle/back and i'm not a good or very attentive student

one of my high school teachers actually made assigned seating based on your grade in the class, and put the good grades in the front and bad in the back. i'd think doing the opposite would be more productive but i guess she wanted her favorites up near her.

 

[prplchknz]

first day of class I walk into the room and I know which is my seat, and of course if someone takes it the next time i hope the chair collapses under their weight and sit somewhere else.

 

[Tabula]

It depended on:

-Subject: interest level + difficulty
-Teaching method
-Time of day
-Classroom "feel": social dynamics, class size, and seating arrangement.

I would say that I average nearer to the right off-center of the class (facing the instructor) and ~3 rows back.

Considerations:
-I'm distractable.
-I don't do well in the early morning.
-I can't take notes, and retain more when I just sit and listen (applies to lecture only classes).
-I'm atrocious at math.

*Generally, the more comfortable I was with the subject and the method, the farther back in the class you would find me.

In the case of an especially difficult, boring, math, early morning, purely lecture-based, or very large class, I needed to sit nearer to the front and slightly off center. It made me feel more accountable, reduced distractions/promoted attentiveness, and lastly, I felt "included." Whether I actively contributed or not, just being in proximity to the teacher as s/he spoke, and making occasional eye contact, helped.

I was doing very well before I dropped out.

*This is barring discussion-based classes in subjects I found interesting. You'd find me nearer to the front so I could contribute to the discussion without having to yell across the room.

I would say that it WOULD HAVE correlated to grade for me, but because I knew where to sit/what I needed and what I wanted (a good grade!) from the start, I was able to get the most out of each class by adapting my placement accordingly. The grade was the controlled variable - not the seating position. This would've been different had I not known.

 

[FDG]

I generally sat around the 3rd row (out of 8-10). During the last year of my masters, the classes I took were composed by just 3 students, so obviously I was forced to sit on the 1st row. My GPA in US terms is around 3.8.
Even if I'm an N type, I'm not very distractable in class. In fact, I actually love learning through lectures, much more than reading a book (my E score is generally between 90 and 100). Even more weirdly, I'm an early bird, thus I strongly prefer early morning classes (around 8:30 AM).

 

[xisnotx]

Maybe.

Where I sit in class depends on a lot of things. So I guess the question is "do these things that affect where I sit in class also affect my gpa?" and I would say so...everything affects everything.

I haven't gone to my Econ 101 class in over two weeks now. I just don't see a point in going to class and wasting 3 hours + all the study time I'd need to actually grasp the material when I can just skip the class..read the material and understand it.

Classes that have professors that will actually help me understand the material..I'll usually sit in the front 1/4 of the class...somewhere in the middle. Discussion classes..at the very back..again in the middle. (These are by far my favorite.) Classes that I think are a waste of time and I'm only doing it just because it needs to get done...somewhere off to the sides..preferably near the door...if I even show up.

I probably tend to average in the middle with respect to "width". "Length" is more polarized..I'm usually in the first 1/4 or the last 1/4.

And my GPA is above average (average being something like 3.0 here) but far from where I want it to be. I really should get on that actually...(which is funny seeing as I missed two classes today..have a homework assignment due in 3 hours that I haven't even touched and I'm currently "wasting" time online.)

Yes, my academic life right now is a mess.

 

[rav3n]

Sat in the back so I could slip out if it got deathly boring. Not an auditory learner although I can learn this way by forcing myself to focus on the droning. Did what was considered to be very well but not from being taught. More from reading and research.

Part of my problem is disliking being directionally herded. My preference is to draw my own conclusions from materials including course materials and other non-approved perspectives.

 

[Tallulah]

I was a first row or first few rows sitter. Sitting in the back made me less engaged and more distracted by the people around me. Graduated with an A average.

I've had some back-row sitters who've made As, but generally speaking, the farther back you sit, the less likely you are to make an A. Back row sitters just tend to be less engaged and less willing to pay attention, as well as more likely to text, chat with their neighbors or sneak computer time. That's been my experience as a teacher.

 

[cascadeco]

^ Agree with what back-row sitters are most likely to do (more likely to be less engaged), but that's precisely why I would sit in the back in pretty much all of my college lectures - the nature of the lectures was that the professors mostly just went through the lecture notes which were already printed out for everyone, so attending lecture wasn't really a value-add. There were of course exceptions, and it was imperative to attend some classes because a lot of extra stuff WAS gained in the lecture.

It was such a case-by-case basis in college; I would always attend the first few weeks of every semester, and then decide whether there was a point in my continuing to attend the remaining lectures. And, of course, it depended too on how easy the subject matter was for me; for example, I attended all of the organic chem lectures, but I attended zero of the Stats 100 lectures (got a B in Organic Chem, because my brain didn't naturally and easily understand the material enough to ever be able to get into the A range on the exams, whereas I got an A+ in Stats 100 because it was... insanely easy). There were other classes where I'd attend one or two lectures a week and skip the third.

Small class formats, though - attending a classroom in more of a discussion-mixed-with-lecture format - I always attended. I suppose I tended to sit halfway to the back on either the left or right side of the room. Never right in the center though.

(I ended w/ a 3.6 gpa in undergrad. I blame it fully on the 1 semester freshman yr of 4 C's - due to my being in computer science, electrical engineering, and calc of several variables, all of which were very much NOT effortless for me. I also didn't really study like I should have.)

In high school I was a 4.0 gpa, but back then the teachers would assign seats in all classes and switch that up a few times a year.

Final comment - for me, at least, seating never impacted a whole lot. In the end I was/am always the sort to learn and study all on my own at home, without relying so much on the teacher, and if the coursework is really hard I'll attend classes for sure, but even then, it doesn't make a difference where I sit - if I know I need to be there to learn, then I'll pay attention. I'm not there to screw around. (If I were just going to screw around, I wouldn't be there in class)

 

[Orangey]

In my experience seating order has made a difference only in courses which require group discussion. When I taught public speaking or ran discussion sections as a TA for a large lecture course, the kids in the back were far less likely to voluntarily participate. As a result, I changed it so that the kids would arrange their desks in a circle (in the classrooms where I could...some could not be tampered with), and that seemed to make a huge difference in their willingness to discuss. It actually surprised me, as I would not have normally thought that the physical arrangement of the room could have so drastic an impact on the behavior or the students.

 

[cascadeco]

^ Interesting point, but makes sense.

Although -I was always kind of resentful of forced participation. I vehemently dislike having to participate in class, and always disliked the teachers who would factor in participation as part of the grade. I mean I see the purpose in a few types of classes (i.e. foreign language classes, classes like philosophy, etc), but for most classes -- eh. I'm there to learn the material. I don't see why I have to be obligated to participate. From a teachers' perspective - I absolutely understand though why participation is desired; makes it less lecture-y, for one.

 

[rav3n]

It sounds like people had small class sizes instead of lecture halls like some of us did.

 

[Glycerine]

Yes, for me anyways, I space out too much in the back. The front helps me get A's.

 

[Rail Tracer]

In the front, you see better, you hear better, and because of those two...you write better/faster. It was shown somewhere that being able to see, hear, and write improves your memory of what went on that day + getting better grades. Sometimes people wonder why I get good grades even though I don't study as hard as them, it is because my mind has studied quite a bit already by the end of the day. But seeing the link that you gave, I feel sorry for those desperate people trying to get a good grade... even though they were smack dab in the front of the class. Maybe they thought they could magically get a good grade by just being in the front (like the blog... maybe they did lol.)

I usually try to get a seat somewhere in the first couple of rows. The closer to the center/where the professor lectured or wrote(on the board/screen), the better. Nevermind the center if the professor uses a projector that is not at the center of the classroom or if the desk in front of the class is blocking the way. Best place for me? Where I can see the professor, where I can hear the professor (without other people talking,) and where I can follow and copy the lecture notes at a fast pace (instead of trying to see what is being written on the board.)

I've only have 2 lecture halls so far, but no matter the class size, I just rather sit somewhere in the front. That is, unless the class is painstakingly... easy.

 

[miss fortune]

Most of the classes that I took had a door in the front side of the classroom... I always sat as close to the door as possible because I tended to arrive a bit late. I graduated with an A average

 

[Sunny Ghost]

really depended on the class size and the teacher, i suppose.

suppose i have a teacher that likes to randomly call out students for answers. i'd sit farther back.

suppose the class is packed full. i'd sit farther pack and preferably to the side.

if it's a smaller classroom with less students. most likely more towards the front, but still closer to the side.

i'm a shy kid, so anything near a wall is preferred, be it front, side, back.

my grades ranged a lot. :/ i'd say i'm an average student overall. i get a lot of classroom anxiety.