The following classroom behaviors were identified as "irritating" by faculty in a recent survey. They have been divided into three categories and arranged in descending order of frequency within each category. The purpose of publishing the results of this survey is to inform students that teachers are acutely aware of the behaviors that occur in their classrooms and that they use these behaviors to form impressions of how they believe their students feel about them and the subject matter they teach. Students may have perfectly good excuses for many of these behaviors (e.g., "I sometimes fall asleep in my classes because I stay up so late studying."), but teachers often interpret these behaviors very differently (e.g., "Students who sleep in my classes obviously find me boring."). Students are urged to read this list in order to gain a better understanding of how their classroom behaviors are interpreted by their teachers. Although final grades are determined primarily by academic criteria (i.e., performance on tests and papers), students should realize that in some borderline cases, final grades are determined by a teacher's impression of the student as either deserving (i.e., polite, motivated, interested, and honest) or undeserving (i.e., rude, lazy, apathetic, and dishonest) of the higher grade.

A. Irritating Behaviors

1. doing work for other classes in class
2. asking "Did we do anything important?" after missing class
3. asking "Will it be on the test?"
4.    being more interested in grades than in learning
5.    pretending to understand
6.    not asking questions
7.    complaining about work load
8.    blaming teachers for poor grades
9.    giving unbelievable excuses
10. acting like a know-it-all
11. not asking for help or asking for help when it is too late

B. Behaviors Interpreted by Teachers as Rude or Disrespectful

1. talking during lectures
2. being late
3. creating disturbances
4. obvious yawning

C. Behaviors Interpreted by Teachers as Indicating that Students Find Them Boring