My Students Don’t Talk in Class: Maybe It’s Not Worth The(ir) Risk

Todd Zakrajsek, ITLC-Lilly Conferences 

For every class I ever taught, on the first day of class I encourage my students to participate in class discussions, to answer questions designed to stimulate thinking, and that it is ok to make mistakes. I explain that to learn, it is important that they participate.  Most never did. 

There were always a handful of students who would freely answer questions and voice their opinions during whole-class discussions. I always assumed the rest  were either not interested or had not prepared for class. Quiet students were pushed a bit but I was never really comfortable doing so. The discomfort came from uncertainty.  I don’t know their circumstances, but I do know that speaking up is more difficult for some , particularly when it comes to neurodiversity, cultural differences, social obligations, fatigue, and so on. 

My thinking has shifted. I have come to believe that if we are going to ask someone to share their voice in class, we have to create better opportunities for them to do so, without risk or making a heavy-handed effort that singles their situation out. Curb cuts are not at crosswalks to make it easier for those in a wheelchair. They are there so that it doesn’t matter if someone is in a wheelchair. We can work to do the same in the classroom. According to a growing body of literature, many students are choosing to not respond due to the perceived risk of answering questions or sharing their perspectives. As educators, I think we can design learning experiences that mitigate those risks to the greatest extent possible.

Image courtesy of Unsplash.

Who Said That?

This is not an easy time to be a teacher. Twenty-five years ago Putnam (2000) wrote a book about a decade-long decline in the number of people involved in a wide variety of social structures, such as church, clubs, and bowling leagues. Students in our classes have had smartphones their entire lives, and traditional-aged college students were in middle school when COVID struck, so they missed out on a critical period of human interaction as a norm, rather than a worry (Mowreader, 2025).  The disengagement phenomenon goes beyond the classroom, though. Pfeifer and Mehl (2026) found that individuals have been talking less in general. In their study with over 2,000 participants, the researchers found that from 2005 to 2019 individuals spoke 300+ fewer words per day for each of those years. That amounts to about 2 fewer minutes of talking a day, but taken together means that we talked about 28% less in 2019 than in 2005. And that was before COVID. Is it any wonder we’re having a hard time encouraging people to speak up in front of their peers?

From the early days of my graduate program in industrial psychology, we were taught that if employees in a factory are frequently injured, it is unlikely they are all clumsy employees. It is much more likely that something in the environment is causing the issue. If my classroom is quiet because most students are quiet, it is unlikely that most of my students don’t care or are unprepared. I need to look to the environment. 

What Do Students Say About Speaking Up?

Researchers are finding that students are not likely to speak up in class and at the same time note that they find it helpful when their classmates do. For example, Nadile and her colleagues (2021) surveyed students in large-enrollment science courses and found that nearly half of the students reported never asking or answering a question during the entire semester. Of those same students, over 90% said they felt it benefited them when other students asked or answered questions. So why don’t they participate if they find it valuable when others do?

One solid reason students choose to not participate is fear of negative evaluation when they asked or answered questions in class: 93% said that they are fearful of speaking in class. Drawing on expectancy-value theory, Mundt and Hänze (2023) noted that when it comes to talking in class, students often offer an answer to a question or weigh in on a conversation only with a reasonable expectation of success. Similarly, students weigh potential costs of speaking up, including the social cost of appearing unintelligent or being criticized.

For many students, it seems to be a constant weighing of risk versus benefit. At the start of a semester,  we can write in the syllabus and say that the classroom is a safe space for them to talk, but we certainly can’t actually guarantee it. We can’t keep students from being negatively judged by others in the classroom, and they know it.

But this does not mean we can just give up; rather it presents an opportunity to take other approaches where the risk is significantly lessened.

Severe and colleagues (2024) also interviewed students about why they did or did not participate. Students’ motivation to participate falls when faculty call students out; tease students; or, interestingly, have participation quotas, all fairly common strategies to force participation, but efforts such as these do nothing to reduce the risk of a student voicing their opinion on a controversial matter. Conversely, students noted that they spoke more in classes when instructors memorized students’ names, asked open-ended questions, and seemed approachable.

Designing Classrooms Conducive to Student Participation

I have been thinking about student participation for a while now, and then something hit me. When I facilitate faculty development workshops, very few faculty actually talk when I ask questions or for volunteers. But they are engaged. Many stop by to talk to me afterwards, with excellent, insightful points or challenges they could have expressed only by being deeply involved.  I suspect faculty in these workshops are not talking for the same reason students sit silently in class. It is often not worth the risk. Look to the classroom and think about the issue as risk reduction. What standard, classroom-wide factors would help students be less fearful of negative evaluation from their peers or encourage them to participate? There are a wide variety of teaching strategies that can be employed. Following are just a few. 

• Have students talk in pairs or triads and then have some summarize what they discussed for the whole class. It is much less risky to express a point of view to one or two students than to 30, 40, 50, or more. When reporting out, ask students to reflect their combined discussion.

• For students who prefer not to speak before the entire class, offer the opportunity to email what they would have said. Ask whether you have permission to share their emailed contributions, use their name, or invite them to address the point themselves. This takes nearly all the risk out of participating.

• Online discussion boards and other asynchronous tools can be used in an onsite course for students to express their views without needing to be eloquent on the spot. Some who rarely participate have fantastic contributions when given the opportunity to think about and even edit their responses.

• Give students time to think. Tell them you will ask a question, but nobody is to speak or raise a hand until 10 seconds have passed. It may amaze you how long a few seconds feel, yet it takes next to no extra class time.

• Provide constructive feedback when someone speaks up. It doesn’t have to be in-depth, but at least polite and demonstrating appreciation of their effort. Showing you care about what they say is so much less risky than an offhand, “Anyone else?}

These strategies are not simply ways to help “quiet students” or “introverts” feel more comfortable speaking in class. They fundamentally transform the risk involved in speaking for anyone who might want to. 

Increasing Class Participation

A student who never talked in class, while speaking effortlessly with me one-on-one, once told me “students know it is important to speak out in class, and a lot of them want to be part of the conversation.”  She looked deflated and continued, “The problem is not the students; the teachers don’t create classrooms where someone like me can talk.”  

She told me that some teachers asked questions, but it was obvious the instructor knew what the student was going to say before they said it, or worse, you could tell the teachers didn’t care about the response. If they weren’t putting any cognitive energy into the conversation, why should the student? She spoke of  times she was teased by faculty members, negatively evaluated by classmates, or scored on her response (in real time) based on a participation rubric. One thing she said will stick with me for years to come: “I refuse to fight for the opportunity to get a point in a class by talking over someone else.”

This anecdote, and this article, isn’t meant to be negative or accusatory. But it is meant to be serious, because the issue is serious. Teaching is a challenging profession that is getting increasingly challenging for so many reasons. It is also a profession that is the gateway to better lives for our students. Let’s give everyone a fighting chance.

Discussion Questions

1. What factors in your classroom might increase or decrease the perceived risk of participating in class discussions? 

2. How do you typically respond when a student gives an incorrect answer in class? What might other students learn from watching that interaction? 

3. Describe one strategy you currently use to reduce the risk associated with participating, and one additional strategy you might try? 

References

Mowreader, A. ( 2025, April 11).  Data: Students less Involved on campus post-pandemic. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/college-experience/2025/04/11/fewer-students-engage-college-activities-after

Mundt, E., & Hänze, M. (2023). Course characteristics influencing students’ oral participation in higher education. Learning Environments Research, 26, 427–444.

Nadile, E. M., Alfonso, E., Barreiros, B. M., Bevan-Thomas, W. D., Brownell, S. E., Chin, M. R., et al. (2021). Call on me! Undergraduates’ perceptions of voluntarily asking and answering questions in front of large-enrollment science classes. PLOS ONE, 16(1), e0243731.

Pfeifer, V. A., & Mehl, M. R. (2026). Sliding Into Silence? We Are Speaking 300 Daily Words Fewer Every Year. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(4), 447-449. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916261425131

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of the American community. Simon & Shuster.

About the Author

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