A new study reveals where students should sit in class to get better grades. Front, middle or rather behind? What is crucial for good grades.
Where did you sit most often at school: in the front, in the back or in the middle? And how were your grades on average? Very good, mediocre or not worth talking about? Did not it always mean that the nerds sit in the front, the class clowns in the back?
Whether there is indeed a connection between the seat of the students in the classroom and their notes, now the research team LEAD (wanted Learning, E ducational A chievement and Life Course D evelopment) of the University of Tuebingen know. Her study was published in the journal Learning and Instruction .
Same teaching situation, different seats
Under the direction of Dr. Karl Guido Rijkhoek was created a virtual classroom for the investigation. All 81 children participating in the study (grades 5 and 6) were given a pair of Virtual Reality glasses. As a result, they all saw exactly the same teaching situation – albeit from different seats: either in front of the teacher or in the back of the last row. On the plan was a lesson in mathematics. Which students learned better?
The experiment showed a clear result. “After the joint mathematics lesson in the virtual classroom, the students in the front rows of seats solved math problems faster than those of the back row”, summarizes first author Friederike Blume, who researches in the field of school psychology. Noticeable: those students who were closest to the teacher performed best.
Teachers should go through the classroom more
The reason for the poorer performance of the students back row is the distraction of classmates, such as the whispers or fidgeting of other children.
“Now it’s important to consider how in a real classroom all children can equally benefit from proximity to teachers,” says Blume. As a result, teachers may consciously move around the classroom more often during lessons, or change students’ sitting position during a school year.