Goldstein and Benassi (1994) demonstrated a positive relationship between teacher self-disclosure and class participation. In some instances, teacher self-disclosure involved relating personal stories or experiences, where relevant, to illustrate the application of concepts presented in class. In other instances, however, self-disclosure involved relating personal information to students in class as a way to "break the ice," and was unrelated to class material. The results suggested students were more likely to ask questions and volunteer comments in class, speak to the instructor after class, etc., with instructors who used self-disclosure. Goldstein and Benassi (1994) did not measure exam performance, so it is unclear whether self-disclosure also affected retention of lecture material.

Since connecting personal experiences with course content is a novelty for most students, an instructor might do so during lecture to illustrate the process, using self-disclosure (broadly defined here to include stories of friends and family) to provide examples of concepts and to model self-referencing for the students. Even if such self-disclosure has no effect on exam scores, it might at least help establish a friendly classroom atmosphere.

To examine the relative effectiveness of instructor self-disclosure and self-reference on the students' recall of lecture material, I randomly divided 16 class lectures for my California State University Bakersfield course in life-span developmental psychology into four different forms of presentation. Eight lectures included instructor self-disclosure and eight did not. Eight of the same sixteen lectures also included student pair-share activities, and eight did not.