Transparent Instruction Improves Student Success: Data from a National Study

Researchers demonstrated in a national study that transparency around academic assignments enhances students’ success at statistically significant levels, with even greater gains for historically underserved students (Winkelmes et al., Peer Review 2016). A later study indicated that college students who received transparent instruction persisted in college over a two-year period at a higher rate than their classmates who did not receive transparent instruction (Gianoutsos et al., 2016). Many faculty, administrators and educational developers across the country have adopted the simple Transparent Framework of purpose/tasks/criteria to guide the practices of teaching, advising, mentoring, assessment and curricular reform to help their institutions right the inequities in college students’ educational experiences (Winkelmes et al., 2019).