A case study examined the student-teacher relationship in writing conferences to determine how both teachers and students can better negotiate teaching-learning situations. Students enrolled in a six-week tutorial writing course at the University of Michigan were used as subjects. Tape-recorded conversations in the weekly half-hour conferences…

Teachers ought to know how to identify the alcoholic student (and also the student in early recovery), and how to help such students. Research indicates that alcohol is implicated in 38% of all academic failures. The alcoholic student may smell of alcohol, act in a disoriented manner, or drop out, but as many as one-third of students surveyed…

Grading style refers to the regularities and variations in the judging habits of instructors. To test the contention that grading is a communication act and ought to be related to other communication variables like instructor responsiveness, a study examined data collected from 15 teaching assistants and 2 faculty members. In addition, it reviewed…

This report describes what has been learned from three surveys about undergraduate academic dishonesty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The surveys involved 891 undergraduates, approximately 490 faculty, and 481 graduate teaching assistants. Cheating was examined as a literal reality rather than as an abstract concept.…

Type A and B students (N=159) received contingent or non-contingent feedback on an aptitude test, attended a lecture from an expressive or unexpressive instructor, and received an achievement test and attributional questionnaire. Non-contingent feedback lowered perceived control for both types. Self-perceptions of Type A students were unaffected…

A study explored the processes and attitudes that occur when assigning students a final course grade. The final grades for 1,578 students in a basic communication course were used in discriminant analyses. The level (the mean of all grades given) and the spread (standard deviation of all grades given) were estimated for each of 17 instructors. The…