Shifting Student Perceptions Towards Inclusive Practices in Undergraduate Course Syllabi

Syllabi are often required documents at higher education institutions in the United States, used to inform students about course information and expectations at the beginning of a new term. Whether syllabi are an effective pedagogical tool has been long debated. Inclusivity in course instruction can start from the choices made when designing syllabi, for example, considering whether to include the instructor’s pronouns or an inclusivity statement. We report a study about students’ shifting attitudes towards inclusive practices in course syllabi. Our analyses are based on quantitative and qualitative data from anonymous online surveys administered to undergraduate students at a STEM institution in New England (USA) in 2022 (n = 145) and 2025 (n = 158). Students’ syllabi reading habits remained virtually unchanged between 2022 and 2025, but their perspectives on inclusive practices shifted. Through mixed-method analyses, we observe diminished interest in inclusive features on syllabi. However, these findings are more nuanced than they initially appear. Rather than indicating a simple decline in interest in inclusivity, we saw a shift in how survey participants interpret the presence of instructor pronouns and inclusivity statements. Students increasingly assign different meanings to them, reflecting broader changes in how inclusive practices are understood and evaluated.