Guided by rhetorical and relational goals theory, this study explores medical students' preferences for effective teaching using a "build-a-professor" design. Using a budget methodology, medical students (N = 177) created their ideal clinical or nonclinical medical school educator by prioritizing 10 teaching behaviors and characteristics…

Three studies (N = 1,346) detail the development of three theoretically grounded instruments operationalizing "instructor strictness." Using open-ended questionnaire data (n = 427), study 1 inductively derives an understanding of the instructor behaviors that students perceive as strict. These patterns of behavior are then condensed into…

Instructors use humor in the classroom in numerous ways, including behaving stupidly, offering impersonations, manipulating their nonverbals, telling a story, joke, or pun, and using a costume or prop. How students decode their instructors' use of humor impacts their feelings about the course and their instructors. In this study, we investigated…

Guided by emotional response theory, this study examined how students' emotional responses mediated the relationship between their instructors' dramatic teaching behaviors (i.e., humor, self-disclosure, narrative) and their approach-avoidance behaviors (i.e., oral in-class participation, out-of-class communication, classroom citizenship…

This study sought to generate a more robust understanding of teacher (in)authenticity. In other contexts, authenticity is regarded as a display of true self and has been positively linked to beneficial psychological (e.g., increased self-esteem) and social outcomes (e.g., higher relational satisfaction). However, what it means to be authentic in…

This study examined how, and under what conditions, teacher clarity (i.e., structure/signaling) impacts student learning. One hundred and forty eight students reported their propensity to approach their studies with a mastery orientation and were randomly exposed to a lesson on persuasion that was either signaled or not. After the lesson, students…

Could teacher communication behaviors generally assumed to be positive ever be detrimental to student realization of particular outcomes? This essay argues for increased scholarly attention to this question. The authors advocate a research agenda that explores the potential "downside" of teacher communication behaviors (TCBs);…

Guided by Rhetorical and Relational Goals Theory, this study examined college students' preferences for effective teaching behaviors and characteristics. Students (n = 209) articulated qualities in their ideal instructor by prioritizing 10 instructional behaviors and characteristics from the rhetorical and relational traditions (assertive,…

This study investigates college student perceptions of instructor credibility based on the content of an instructor's Twitterfeed and student beliefs about Twitter as a communication tool. Quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized to explore the effects of three manipulated Twitter feeds (e.g., tweeting social topics, professional topics,…

Although previous research has linked students' expected grades to numerous pedagogical variables, this factor has been all but ignored by instructional communication scholars. In the present study, 315 undergraduates were presented with grading scenarios representing differing combinations of course rigor, teacher immediacy, and student…

Using a message interpretation perspective, this study (N = 379) examined how sex of the student, sex of the teacher, and the setting affect the messages students receive from a teacher's excessive use of immediacy. Results reveal that students interpret excessive immediacy from female teachers as caring, but the same behavior from male teachers…

The use of humor in teaching has been linked to learning in several studies, although the research has been equivocal. The various types of humor used by teachers have also been investigated but not in terms of what students view as appropriate and inappropriate uses of humor. Participants in this study were asked to generate examples of…

Presents abbreviated abstracts of selected documents from the 1979-81 issues of "Resources in Education." Covers the following categories: research studies; analysis systems for the classroom; nonverbal communication in the library; nonverbal deception studies; and teaching nonverbal communication. (PD)

Investigates the effects of conveyance system design and social presence, in the form of teacher immediacy behavior, on perceived student learning and satisfaction in the televised classroom. Finds that system design and teacher immediacy behavior strongly impact student learning and satisfaction. (MG)

Investigates the effects of teacher nonverbal immediacy and strategy type on college students' likelihood of resisting teacher compliance-gaining attempts. Suggests that the relative effectiveness of prosocial strategies and antisocial strategies may be contingent on teachers' nonverbal immediacy, with students reporting a greater likelihood of…