Student Perceptions of First Year Composition Assignment Design and Classroom Policy

A survey completed by 557 first year composition students at Georgia State University shed light on student perceptions of assignment design and classroom policy. Surveys were analyzed using nonparametric statistical analyses of data and textual analysis of written comments. Students value feeling autonomous and understanding the reasoning behind instructors? choices. Students felt similarly capable of completing either traditional essay assignments or multimodal assignments, but they wanted the ability to choose between the assignment types. For every classroom policy, the majority of students preferred the nontraditional, flexible option. That said, students generally found the traditional policies to be reasonable and expected to be able to comply, even if they didn?t like the policy. Every demographic preferred the nontraditional policies, so there were no significant interactions between preferences and student demographics. Further, nontraditional policies positively impacted students? perceptions of instructors, but they worried the instructor may not follow through. Consequently, personalized, nontraditional policies are likely to encourage students to engage more with the course and the course syllabus, but only if the syllabus content matches the course experiences. Future research should explore whether personalized syllabi facilitate student memory and engagement in practice.