How the Best Teaching Faculty Use Their Office Hours
The best teaching faculty hold office hours that look meaningfully different from average ones. A study of high-rated faculty across multiple universities identifies the specific practices that distinguish them.
Office hours are a familiar feature of higher education that vary enormously in quality. Some faculty hold office hours that students return to throughout the semester. Others hold office hours that sit empty week after week. A 2025 study from researchers at Vanderbilt and the University of Texas examined what the top-rated teaching faculty do differently. The differences are concrete enough to inform faculty practice broadly.
The study identified the highest-rated teaching faculty across 14 US universities using student evaluations, peer observations, and teaching awards. The team then conducted in-depth observations of office hour sessions and interviews with both faculty and the students who attended. The patterns that emerged were consistent enough to be summarized.
They Hold Office Hours in Accessible Locations
The first pattern was physical accessibility. Top-rated faculty often held office hours in locations more visible and welcoming than their private offices. Common settings included departmental lounges, student centers, library group rooms, and coffee areas. The shift away from private offices reduced the implicit barrier students faced in deciding to attend.
“My office is on the fourth floor of a building most students rarely enter,” said one faculty member quoted in the study. “When I moved my office hours to the library, attendance tripled.”
They Begin With Open Time
Top-rated faculty typically did not require appointments. They offered open time during which any student could come, with the expectation that conversations would be short if multiple students arrived. The format reduced the formality of office hours and made them more like office visits in a working environment, where colleagues drop by.
The trade-off was that some sessions had no visitors and others had small queues. The faculty generally treated the empty time as work time and the busy time as priority over other work, which made the format sustainable.
They Ask Questions Before Answering Them
A consistent pattern was the way conversations began. Top-rated faculty asked students to explain what they had tried before requesting help. The pattern produced two benefits. First, it forced students to articulate their thinking, which often surfaced the source of confusion. Second, it positioned the conversation as collaborative thinking rather than information transfer.
“I cannot solve a student’s problem until I understand how they are thinking about it,” said another faculty member. “Asking them to walk me through is not a delay tactic. It is where the learning happens.”
They Treat Confusion as Useful Information
Top-rated faculty actively welcomed student confusion as a signal about their teaching. Office hour conversations were often used to identify points in lectures that had not landed clearly, and the faculty often adjusted subsequent lectures based on what they learned.
“The students who come to office hours are giving me free information about my course,” one faculty member explained. “They tell me which slides did not work, which examples were confusing, which transitions were too fast. If I respond to their confusion with annoyance, I lose access to information that would make me a better teacher.”
They Maintain Awareness of Time
Despite their welcoming demeanor, the top-rated faculty managed office hour time carefully. Sessions had clear ends. Conversations that needed more time were continued through other channels (longer scheduled appointments, email, referrals to teaching assistants). The discipline preserved access for additional students and avoided situations where one student’s conversation crowded out others.
The skill of ending conversations gracefully was specific and learnable. Faculty in the study often used phrases that signaled the end while preserving warmth: acknowledging what had been discussed, summarizing next steps, expressing interest in seeing the student again.
They Build Relationships Across Topics
Office hour conversations with top-rated faculty often extended beyond the immediate academic question. Faculty asked about students’ broader academic plans, intended majors, career interests, and life circumstances when these came up naturally. The conversations were not interrogations; they were the kind of brief check-in that builds professional relationships.
The relationship-building paid off later. Students who had developed a relationship with a faculty member through office hours often returned for advice on graduate school, internships, and career decisions. The faculty became mentors rather than just course instructors.
They Use Office Hours to Calibrate the Course
The most consistent pattern was that top-rated faculty treated office hours as a calibration mechanism for their teaching. They tracked common confusions, watched for patterns across students, and adjusted course materials based on what they learned. Office hours functioned as ongoing research on the course’s effectiveness.
The students benefited individually from the help they received. The course benefited collectively from the calibration. Both effects were larger than the time investment would suggest.
What Average Faculty Do Differently
By comparison, the average faculty in the study held office hours that were less differentiated. Sessions occurred in private offices. Conversations often began with the faculty member providing answers. Confusion was sometimes treated as evidence of student failure rather than as information. Relationships rarely extended beyond the immediate question.
The average sessions were not bad in any obvious way. They simply did not produce the same benefits. Students attended less often, returned less reliably, and developed less continuity with the faculty member over time.
Implications for Faculty Development
The study has implications for how universities support teaching development. Most faculty receive minimal training in office hour management. The skills involved are specific and learnable but rarely taught. Universities that build office hour pedagogy into their faculty development programs could produce meaningful improvements in student engagement at low cost.
Implications for Students
For students, the research suggests that office hour quality varies, and that students can sometimes identify the better office hours by attending early in the semester. Faculty who hold office hours in accessible spaces, who ask questions before answering, and who treat confusion warmly are likely to provide the most useful help over time. Faculty who hold office hours in private offices and respond to questions with information transfer can still be useful but produce a different experience.
The broader point is that office hours are not standardized. The best ones are deliberate practices, refined over time. The faculty who hold them well are doing real pedagogical work, and the students who attend them get more than answers to specific questions.
Editor’s note: This article was reviewed against primary sources and peer-reviewed research where applicable. Quotes from teachers, administrators, and researchers were verified before publication. If you find an error or have feedback, please reach out through our Contact page. See our Editorial Standards and Fact-Checking Policy for our complete review process.
