Do Higher Education syllabi and oral course introduction affect student’s motivation to study ? Measuring the impact of syllabi from specifically trained Faculties on students’ perceptions of controllability, course value and competency

As defined by Altman and Cashin (1992), “the primary purpose of a syllabus is to communicate to one’s students what the course is about, why the course is taught, where it is going, and what will be required of the students for them to complete the course with a passing grade”. According to several authors, one of the functions of the syllabus is to motivate students: it “conveys enthusiasm for the subject and sparks student interest and motivation” (Hammons & Shock, 1994), “warm syllabi explain expectations in a clear and friendly fashion, encourage and motivate students” (Slattery & Carlson, 2005), “the course syllabus should generate interest and motivate students to take responsability to learn the contents of the course” (Johnson, 2006), “we studied teachers who have enormous success in helping and encouraging their students to achieve remarkable learning and found they usually produce a certain kind of syllabus” (Bain, 2004). Some researchers (Thompson, 2007) have also pointed out different oral strategies used by teachers when presenting their courses for the first time to students in order to positively affect them on this aspect. But the question is: can this very early written / oral transmission of information really impact students’motivation for learning in some courses?
In the University of Liège, professors have to submit every year for each of their courses a one page (at least) standardized syllabus (called engagement pédagogique). In addition, they usually start their first lesson with introductory speeches that plays the same role. In 2008, IFRES (Institute for Training and Research in Higher Education) has delivered pedagogical training and guidelines to new faculties in order to promote these two kinds of motivating communications especially with their freshmen and sophomores audiences.
As the person in charge with that training, I focused on Viau’s model of motivation dynamics (1997). The specific suggestions I gave consisted in taking into account various kinds of students’ perceptions (1) of competency (“a perception that a student has about him(her)self and through which he/she assesses his/her ability to suitably accomplish an activity that he/she is not sure to carry off”), (2) of controlability (“the perception of the control that a student has on the course of an activity and on its consequences”) and (3) of activities value (“the opinion that a student expresses on the interest and the usefulness of a pedagocical activiy according to the goals he/she pursues”) in one’s written and oral communication with students about pedagogical and practical aspects of a course.
At the beginning of the academic year following the delivery of those guidelines and training sessions, the wording of syllabi and oral speeches produced by 10 of those new faculties was analysed from their motivational potential’s point of view. In the same time, questionnaires were submitted to the 1400 students of their 12 introductory courses, in order to investigate the corollary impact of those information transmissions on learners’ motivational dynamics. Before and after their reception of the oral and written messages from their respective teachers, student’s levels of perception concerning the value of the course, concerning their own competency to succeed in it and concerning their controlability, have been compared in order to measure hypothetical gains due to syllabi and face-to-face course introduction. We have studied relations between students who have actualy read / not read syllabi, or who have actually listened / not listened to oral presentation of the course, and their level of perception of Viau’s three motivational factors. Other relations between variables like students’ perceptions of their own teacher (resulting from the content and tone of his/her messages) or the presence / absence of a rationale for some particular items of information have also been studied.