The authors begin this article noting that they believe gathering data on student behaviors, traits, and characteristics is essential for understanding how students affect instructional communication processes. They write here that what is equally essential, however, is exploring how student developmental processes (i.e., the ways in which…

In this brief forum article, the author suggests studying the instructor-student relationship as a superior-subordinate relationship offers an alternative way to view how student learning occurs in the college classroom, and can provide instructional communication researchers with the opportunity to explore how structural and institutional…

The mission of "Communication Education" is to publish the best research on communication and learning. Researchers study the communication-learning interface in many ways, but a common approach is to explore how instructor and student communication can lead to better learning outcomes. Although scholars have long classified learning…

This article presents the Instructional Beliefs Model which forwards that teacher behaviors, student characteristics, and course-specific structural issues combine to influence students' instructional beliefs. Through these instructional beliefs, the first-order variables influence student learning outcomes. Three studies were conducted to…

This study tested two models of instructor credibility as a potential mediator of instructors' prosocial communication behaviors (e.g., confirmation, clarity, and nonverbal immediacy) and students' learning outcomes. Participants included 1,416 undergraduate students from four different institutions across the United States. Results of structural…

Identifies five underlying reasons students communicate with their instructors: relational, functional, excuse, participation, and sycophancy. Finds that students who communicate for all the interpersonal communication motives tend to communicate more with their instructors to relate and participate, while students who communicated for the motive…

Recently, Martin, Myers, and Mottet (1999) introduced a measure for the motives students have for communicating with their instructors. The purpose of this study was to further examine students' motives for communicating in the classroom and to further refine this measure. Additionally, measures of affective and cognitive learning were used to…

Explores the use of information-seeking strategies (i.e., overt, indirect, third party, testing, observing) among students in the college classroom. Notes that researchers did not find a significant relationship between student use of the observing information-seeking strategy and perceived instructor clarity, verbal immediacy, and verbal…

A study explored student perceptions of how instructors of the speech communication basic course utilize affinity-seeking strategies to establish a communication climate in the classroom. Subjects were 147 undergraduate students enrolled in the basic course at a large midwestern university. Each subject was asked to complete two instruments: (1)…

Recently, Martin, Myers, and Mottet (1999) introduced a measure of motives students use when communicating with their instructors. The purpose of this study was to examine further students' motives for communicating with their instructors by considering both students' sociocommunicative orientation and instructors' socio-communicative style. Also…

Finds that a significant relationship exists between teachers' use of affinity-seeking strategies and student perceptions of classroom climate. Shows that 19 of the 25 strategies were correlated with classroom climate, and that communication teachers regularly used 19 of the 25 strategies. (SR)

Finds that students enrolled in conventional classrooms and distributed-learning classrooms (in which students primarily interact with the instructor and other students through computer-mediated communication) did not perceive a significant difference in instructor verbal immediacy, but they did perceive a significant difference in instructor…

A study examined the communication climate of a graduate teaching assistant's (GTA) college classroom. Because the teaching role is often new to the GTA, establishing a communication climate may be a significant factor in classroom management. One section of a public speaking class taught by a new graduate teaching assistant at a large midwestern…