Guided by an affective theoretical process, we surveyed college students (N = 397) to examine the effect of college instructors' lecture misbehaviors on students' emotional interest directly, and indirectly through affect toward the course content, among students who varied in their desire to master the course material (i.e., first- and…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to model student trajectories of instructional dissent over the course of a semester. Participants were 312 undergraduate students who completed panel surveys on their worst course of the semester at three time points: during the beginning, middle, and end of a college course. Latent growth curve modeling…

The purpose of this teaching experiment was to examine the causal effect of relevant (compared to irrelevant) instructor self-disclosure on student affect and cognitive learning. Undergraduate students (N = 288) were randomly assigned to a 19-minute classroom lecture with an instructor who taught the same lesson but self-disclosed either relevant…

This study modeled the strain that academic demands (i.e., taking courses with demanding workloads) place on college students' academic performance by exploring how sources of student academic support and stress might explain this association. Student participants (N = 302) completed a survey about their most demanding class of the semester and…

Two experiments examined the effect of teaching with content relevance strategies on student learning outcomes. In both experiments, college students were randomly assigned to one of three teaching conditions in which the instructor: (1) made no effort to teach the lesson content as relevant (control); (2) taught the same lesson content in a…

Instructors tell stories for pedagogical reasons, but not all classroom stories are necessarily relevant to students and their learning. This study examined how instructors tell stories in ways that students find relevant or irrelevant to their lives. Participants were 388 undergraduate students who responded to an open-ended survey asking them to…

This quasi-experiment examined how incorporating an instructor narrative into teaching augmented students' recall, affect, and sustained attention. One hundred and ninety-four undergraduate students were assigned to one of two teaching conditions in a college classroom: a lecture that included an instructor narrative summarizing the lesson's key…

Guided by self-determination theory, we conducted a live lecture experiment in two 50-min college courses to manipulate autonomy-supportive instruction (i.e., the amount of choices and rationales offered to students). Participants were 201 undergraduate students who either attended a lecture where the instructor gave students choices over the…

The purpose of this study was to continue the trend of identifying the course offerings of National Communication Association (NCA) department members started by Wardrope (1999). A curricular profile of U.S. communication departments. "Communication Education," "48"(3), 256-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529909379173 and…

This study examined learning differences for students who were given instructor-provided examples during a lesson compared with student-generated examples. In an experiment, 348 students were exposed to an online lesson about fear appeals and were randomly assigned to either a condition where (a) examples of key concepts were provided by the…

This study tested the notion that the effect of instructor clarity on learning is conditioned upon students' motivation. We randomly assigned 128 participants to a video of a clear or an unclear lecture and asked them to report their motivation to deeply process lecture material. Results indicated that even with clear instruction, test scores were…

Guided by assumptions from the cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, we conducted a teaching experiment to corroborate past correlational research that suggested instructor misbehaviors, in the form of antagonism toward students, impede students' cognitive learning. Participants were 472 undergraduate students who were randomly…

Guided by broaden-and-build theory and emotional response theory, we examined college students' emotional outcomes in the classroom (i.e., emotional interest, emotional support, emotion work, emotional valence) as a function of teacher confirmation (i.e., responding to questions, demonstrating interest, teaching style). Participants were 159…

Three studies (N = 1119) were conducted to replicate and expand upon Kearney, Plax, Hays, and Ivey's seminal research on instructor misbehaviors. In study 1 (n = 233), a replication of Kearney et al.'s study revealed 43 categories of perceived instructor misbehaviors; 27 of the misbehaviors were originally identified by Kearney et al. and 16 new…

The purpose of this study was to investigate if college students' verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness traits promote their tendencies to engage in instructional dissent (i.e., expressive, rhetorical, vengeful). Participants were 172 undergraduate students who completed a self-report survey measuring these traits and their dissent practices…