Journal Article

Possibilities and challenges of out-of-class interactions in the Mozambican academic context

Geschwind, Lars, Mendonça, Marta, Weurlander, Maria, De Carvalho, Francisco Coelho

2025

Overview

The benefits of student-faculty interactions are substantial in fostering undergraduate students' social and intellectual growth throughout their academic pathways. In particular, out-of-class interactions offer several opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with faculty members in the campus environment. This study employs a qualitative approach to investigate how students interact with faculty outside the classroom and how students interpret faculty's accessibility for out-of-class interactions. It also seeks to understand the challenges faced by students during these encounters. The findings of this study indicate that students seek out faculty outside the classroom for several reasons, but most of all for grade-related issues. While some students experienced a positive perception of faculty behaviour during informal contacts, the issue of infrequent interactions was emphasized as one of the challenges. The study indicates a variety of situations causing hesitancy and preventing students from seeking help outside the classroom. The ability to persist and complete a degree with success depends on many factors within an academic context. Psychologists and educators have provided many theories and pedagogical approaches to improve our understanding of how students learn. However, my interest in the field of teaching and learning in higher education goes beyond the understanding of how pedagogical approaches can improve a student's learning and academic outcomes. As a sociologist, we often provide an explanation of how social categories affect individuals in a social context. My contribution through this research is to investigate the role of social aspects of the student experience in higher education, in particular the contribution of the major socializing agents on campus (interactions with faculty members). In this study, I tried to contribute to the understanding of these interactions in a challenged context where students were less likely to seek faculty beyond the classroom.

• Publisher: Cogent,Taylor & Francis Group
• Subject: faculty accessibility, faculty behavior / higher education / infrequent interaction / out-of-class interactions / sociology of education / student experience / Student-faculty interaction / Theories of learning