Reluctance to speak in college classrooms: academic causes and consequences

Controversial topics are important parts of academic discussions, and due to the nature of these topics, students may be reluctant to speak freely about them in college classrooms. This study aims to explore factors that influence students’ reluctance to speak at a small midwest college, and the effect this may have on academic performance. We surveyed 233 undergraduates to evaluate the connection between campus expression and academic performance through the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between reluctance to speak and grade-point-average. A t-test was used to examine whether the number of topics students are reluctant to speak about is related to GPA, and found that the average GPA of students who are reluctant about a moderate number of topics is higher than those reluctant about an extreme number. We also explored the hypothesis that students who are reluctant to speak about controversial topics in the classroom are more concerned that peers will criticize their views as offensive than they are about criticism from professors or on social media. A McNemar’s Chi-Square test was used to analyze the results to determine which factor students were more concerned about. Students were more concerned about their peers than about their professors or being posted on social media. These results may highlight targets in classroom structure for attempting to decrease reluctance to speak.