Instructional Dissent as a Function of Student Conflict Styles

The purpose of this study was to examine how students’ conflict styles (i.e., integrating, avoiding, dominating, obliging, and compromising) were related to the expression of instructional dissent (i.e., expressive, rhetorical, and vengeful). Participants were 160 undergraduate students, who completed a questionnaire measuring their conflict-handling communication with an instructor and how frequently they engaged in instructional dissent throughout the semester. Results of a canonical correlation revealed that (a) when students used the integrating, dominating, and compromising conflict styles, but did not use the avoiding style, they communicated more rhetorical dissent, and (b) when students used the dominating style, but not the integrating or obliging styles, they communicated more expressive, rhetorical, and vengeful dissent.     

Feeling Valued Matters: An Examination of Instructor Confirmation and Instructional Dissent

This study explored the relationship between effective instructor behavior—instructor confirmation—and a potentially negative student behavior—instructional dissent. Previous studies demonstrate that student characteristics provide a limited explanation for how students express dissent (e.g., Goodboy & Myers, 2012 Goodboy, A. K. & Myers, S. A. (2012). Brief report: Instructional dissent as an expression of students’ verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness traits. Communication Education, 61, 448–458. doi:10.1080/03634523.2012.699635[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Thus, scholars have begun to investigate the influence of instructor behaviors along with student characteristics to understand why students express dissent (LaBelle, Martin, & Weber, 2013 LaBelle, S., Martin, M. M. & Weber, K. (2013). Instructional dissent in the college classroom: Using the instructional beliefs model as a framework. Communication Education, 62, 169–190. doi:10.1080/03634523.2012.759243[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). This study revealed that instructor confirmation negatively related to expressive and vengeful dissent, but not rhetorical dissent. Further, the three dimensions of instructor confirmation functioned differently in accounting for variance in expressive and vengeful dissent. Future research should build towards a model of instructional dissent model that reflects the unique characteristics of the instructional context and modifiable instructor behaviors.     

When Instructors Self-Disclose but Misbehave: Conditional Effects on Student Engagement and Interest

This study examined the conditional influence of relevant instructor self-disclosure on student interest (cognitive, emotional) and engagement (silent-in-class, oral-in-class, thinking about course content, out-of-class). College student participants (N = 169) completed a questionnaire on their instructor’s disclosures and misbehaviors in class, and their own interest and engagement in a college course. The positive associations between relevant instructor self-disclosure with student interest and engagement were conditional; they were moderated by perceived instructor misbehaviors (antagonism, lectures). Overall, the positive associations were diminished for cognitive and emotional interest when instructors were antagonistic; these associations became nonsignificant, and then negative at higher levels of antagonism. Similarly, the positive associations were diminished for all four types of student engagement when instructors delivered boring and confusing lectures; these associations became nonsignificant at higher levels of lecture misbehaviors, and the associations for silent in-class and out-of-class engagement became negative at very high levels of lecture misbehaviors.     

Beliefs About Intergenerational Communication Across the Lifespan: Middle Age and the Roles of Age Stereotyping and Respect Norms

Guided by theoretical models, this research examines (for the first time within the same design) young American adults' reports of age stereotypes, norms of respect, beliefs about intra‐ and intergenerational communication, and communication satisfaction toward young adult, middle‐aged, and older adult targets. Multivariate analyses showed that as age of target increased so did trait attributions of benevolence, norms of politeness and deference, and communicative respect and satisfaction; however, attributions of personal vitality decreased linearly. Path analyses revealed that the more young adults stereotyped older adults as benevolent and personally vital, the less likely they were to report avoiding communication with them. Deference norms also positively related to the degree of communicative respect afforded older adults and the more respondents reported avoiding communication with them, the less satisfied they were with their intergenerational conversations.     

Attributional support: Targeting attributions underlying recipient emotions

The attribution theory of emotion (Weiner, 1986) is presented as a common example of a naïve theory finding that people expect attributions of personal control and other control to underlie feelings of guilt and anger respectively. The study predicts that supporters use this implicit knowledge to focus their supportive messages on the attributions corresponding to their recipients’ reported emotions. It is also possible that supporters are influenced by their own attributions about support recipients’ problems. The data from 84 college students indicate that the supporters’ intended and actual messages tended to follow their own attributions about their recipients’ situation rather than the attributions implied by the emotions reported by their recipients. It is suggested that some supporters fail to be comforting to their recipients because they do not perceive the situation in the same way as their recipients, and may therefore try to change their recipients ‘ perceptions of their problems.     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Organizational Dissent and Workplace Freedom in Five European Economies

Individuals in five European countries—Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (n = 1184)—completed a survey exploring the relationship between organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Results revealed workplace freedom of speech is positively correlated with dissent among the entire sample in France and in Germany. Results in Spain were nonsignificant. In the United Kingdom, there was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and dissent. There was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and articulated dissent and a positive relationship with latent dissent in Finland. Moreover, MANCOVA testing showed nationality to have a significant effect on organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Germans scored the highest on dissent and workplace freedom with Spain scoring the lowest.     

How Much Should a Corporation Communicate About Corporate Social Responsibility? Reputation and Amount of Information Effects on Stakeholders’ CSR-Induced Attributions

This study investigates how much corporations should communicate about their corporate social responsibility (CSR) to stakeholders. It is important to know how much a corporation should communicate about its CSR, because over-communicating CSR may cause stakeholders to question the motivations (CSR-induced intrinsic and extrinsic attributions) of the corporation’s CSR engagement. Through an experiment (N = 372), the effects of corporate reputation and the amount communicated about CSR on CSR-induced attributions are investigated. Findings show that neither the amount of CSR communication nor corporate reputation influences stakeholders’ CSR-induced attributions. The findings of this study suggest that corporations may choose to spend less time and money trying to communicate about their CSR engagement, because it does not influence stakeholders’ CSR-induced attributions.     

Communicating Expertise: Knowledge Performances in Professional-Service Firms

Researchers in many disciplines treat expertise as an individually held attribute that allows for consistently superior performance in a specific domain. However, in knowledge-intensive environments, where work practices are ill-defined, invisible, and their outputs are ambiguous, attributions of expertise are not likely to emerge solely from objective criteria such as task performance or professional standing. This study offers an alternative communicative view of expertise arguing that attributions of expertise are developed from visible performances of knowledge in the practice of work. Using qualitative data collected from fieldwork at two public relations organizations, this work develops themes regarding the attribution of expertise in knowledge-intensive firms and then shows that experts are more likely than nonexperts to perform behaviors reflective of those themes. Findings suggest that attributions of expertise in knowledge-intensive organizations emerge through social interactions and are produced by and a product of communicative acts.     

Instructors' and Students' Perspectives of Student Nagging: Frequency,Appropriateness, and Effectiveness

Nagging is a persistent tactic students use to persuade instructors. The purpose of this study was to compare student (n = 280) and instructor (n = 97) perceptions of student nagging in the classroom, and to examine the relationship between student nagging and instructor satisfaction. Results show that instructors perceive students as using four nagging strategies with significantly greater frequency than students do. In addition, students perceive all seven nagging strategies to be significantly more effective and appropriate than instructors. Finally, there is a significant relationship between particular nagging strategies and instructor satisfaction.     

Examining the association of job tenure,employment history,and organizational status with employee dissent

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between temporal and structural components of organizational life (i.e., job tenure, employment history, and organizational history) and employee dissent. This was accomplished by comparing respondents’ reports about their tendencies to use varying strategies for dissent to their reports about present job tenure, number of full‐time employers, total years work experience, and organizational status. Structural equation models were used to examine the association between temporal measures (job tenure, number of full‐time employers, total years work experience), structural measures (organizational status) and dissent constructs. Findings indicated that articulated dissent use was associated with management status, whereas latent dissent use was associated with nonmanagement status, increases in present job tenure and decreases in number of full‐time employers and total years work experience.     

Students’ perceptions of instructors’ socio‐communicative style and the influence on instructor credibility and situational motivation

This study investigated whether instructors with different socio‐communicative styles differed in their students’ perceptions of their credibility and their students’ Situationen motivation. Students (N = 260) completed a questionnaire on the class/instructor they had immediately before their current class. The questionnaire consisted of measures of assertiveness, responsiveness, credibility, and situational motivation. Instructors with the socio‐communicative style of competent were perceived highest in all three dimensions of credibility (expertise, character, and caring) and in students’ situational motivation. Instructors classified as noncompetent were perceived as lowest in caring and expertise, while instructors classified as aggressive were perceived as lowest in character. Additionally, situational motivation was positively correlated to all three dimensions of credibility. The results support the importance of instructors being able to display assertive and responsive communication behaviors.     

Understanding the Role of Instructor Rapport in the College Classroom

ABSTRACT

This study examined the discriminant validity between rapport and immediacy and tested a model using instructor rapport as the mediator between immediacy and learning. Participants (N = 146) completed measures of nonverbal immediacy, instructor rapport, perceived cognitive learning, and anticipated final course grade. Results revealed that immediacy and rapport were two distinct constructs. In testing the model, the enjoyable interaction dimension of instructor rapport mediated the relationship between immediacy and perceived learning but not anticipated final grades. The personal connection dimension of rapport mediated the relationship between immediacy and both perceived learning and anticipated final grade. These results explore the mechanism through which immediacy may lead to cognitive learning.     

Let Me Tell You About My Success: The Implications of Attribution-Based Capitalization Response Messages for Discloser Affect

Capitalization attempts, or the sharing of personal good news, can have positive outcomes for disclosers when met with a skillful response. This study reports on a test of an attribution-based theoretical framework for capitalization response messages. Participants (N = 314) read capitalization response messages created by crossing the causal attribution dimensions of locus, stability, and globality. They rated messages for their anticipated effect on positive and negative affect. Results indicate that messages that make internal attributions for success are rated significantly higher on positive affect and lower on negative affect than messages making external attributions, as are messages making stable versus unstable attributions. The stability dimension moderates the impact of the globality dimension on message ratings. Implications for attribution and social support theories are discussed.     

Chronemics in Instructor–Student E-Mail Communication: An Experimental Examination of Student Evaluations of Instructor Response Speeds

Text-based computer-mediated communication (e.g., e-mail) lacks nonverbal cues afforded by traditional face-to-face interaction in the classroom. A lack of cues may cause students to place increased importance on elements that are still present, such as how long it takes an instructor to respond to a message. This study experimentally explored how instructor e-mail response speed and message content interact to influence student perceptions of instructor interpersonal attraction and credibility. Results (N = 385) suggested that the quicker an instructor responds to a student e-mail message, the more positively s/he is evaluated in terms of social attractiveness, task attractiveness, competence, character, and caring. However, the content of the message did not significantly influence student perceptions of the instructor. These findings offer practical implications for instructor e-mail communication in the classroom and extend what is known about chronemics in computer-mediated communication to the instructional setting.     

Shared Entertainment,Shared Opinions: The Influence of Social TV Comments on the Evaluation of Talent Shows

The present research investigated whether co-viewer comments in social TV interactions are able to enhance or weaken media effects. With the example of talent shows, the valence of co-viewer comments (pro/contra/none) as well as the type of content (antisocial behavior vs. conventional performance) were varied in an experiment (N = 117). Results showed that participants’ own comments and their private attitudes about the judges varied in line with comment valence. Findings suggest that social TV viewers are prone to social influence of their co-viewers, which might amplify problems regarding the portrayal of antisocial behavior in reality TV.     

Precursors to College Student Burnout: Developing a Typology of Understanding

Burnout plays a fundamental role in students' lives. Although research has examined important themes and topics associated with the learning process (e.g., teacher behaviors), additional research is needed that explores how students influence their own learning. This study presents the results of a survey examining the precipitators of student burnout. More than 350 students were surveyed to access students' perceptions of what constitutes burnout as well as the extent to which burnout exists in their lives. A constant comparison method was employed to analyze students' comments, and five categories of antecedent conditions emerged: assignment overload, outside influences, lack of personal motivation, mental and physical health, and instructor attitude and behavior). Interpretations of findings in this study are discussed.     

Exploring the relationship between workplace freedom of speech,organizational identification,and employee dissent

The purpose of this study was to examine how subordinates' perceptions of workplace freedom of speech related to their levels of organizational identification and their strategies for expressing dissent. Full‐time working adults from various organizations in the Southwest completed self‐report survey instruments. Results indicated that organizational identification as well as the expression of articulated dissent and latent dissent varied as a function of workplace freedom of speech.     

Sharing Good and Bad News with Friends and Strangers: Reasons for and Communication Behaviors Associated with the MUM Effect

People are reluctant to share bad news. Reasons include self-presentation and sensitivity to receiver emotionality. An experiment investigated these reasons during interactions between friends and strangers. Females (N = 330, 165 dyads) gave good or bad news to a close friend or stranger. Time to response was recorded. The MUM effect replicated for both friends and strangers. No main effects for friend/stranger or interaction between friend/stranger and news valence were found. Data were more consistent with a self-presentation explanation. Behavioral data were also analyzed to explore communicative behavior that accompanies the sharing of good and bad news. Limitations and implications are discussed.