Janie H. Wilson

Professor–Student Rapport Scale Predicts Student Outcomes

Rapport traditionally has been measured in therapy or in other one-on-one relationships such as with roommates. As yet, no scale is available to measure professor–student rapport. In this study, 51 undergraduates created items to measure professor–student rapport, and subsequently, 195 different college students rated their agreement with items based on their professor. Factor analysis revealed 1 meaningful component of professor–student rapport represented by 34 items. Rapport correlated with professor immediacy, providing convergent validity. Hierarchical linear regression with immediacy entered first and rapport entered second revealed significant improvement in prediction of student attitudes toward the instructor and the course as well as student motivation, perceptions of learning, and self-reported grades. Thus, we propose that professor–student rapport as measured by the current scale serves as a useful predictor of valuable student outcomes.

The First Day of Class Affects Student Motivation: An Experimental Study:

Teaching experts assert that the first day of class impacts students, with potential negative effects lasting the entire term. However, no empirical research supports this supposition. We randomly assigned students to view a video of their professor either providing a positive or negative first-day experience. Students with the positive experience reported better attitudes and more positive expectations at the end of the first day. Although several differences dissipated by the end of the first week, students with the positive first-day experience reported higher motivation for the majority of the course, and their grades were significantly higher by the end of the term.

A conspecific attenuates prolactin responses to open-field exposure in rats

Acute exposure to a novel environment, such as an open field, generally results in a prolactin surge, while several days of exposure to the open field is often characterized by a decline in prolactin. As exposure to the open field is a psychological stressor, altering the animals interpretation of the event should alter prolactin levels. In the present study, juvenile male and female rats were habituated to the open field for 1 or 5 days prior to testing in the chamber alone or with a same-sex conspecific. Levels of prolactin were measured across all rats, and play (pins) was recorded for animals tested with a conspecific. Five days of habituation to the chamber resulted in lower levels of prolactin and more play than 1 day of habituation. Across both conditions of habituation, testing with a conspecific caused lower levels of prolactin than testing alone. In addition, play and prolactin were negatively correlated. The presence of a conspecific in a stressful situation may have reduced stress by altering the animals negative interpretation of the open field. Further, as the intensity of the social interaction increased (more play), prolactin levels decreased.

Professor-Student Rapport Scale: Six Items Predict Student Outcomes.

Rapport between students and teachers leads to numerous positive student outcomes, including attitudes toward the teacher and course, student motivation, and perceived learning. The recent development of a Professor–Student Rapport scale offers assessment of this construct. However, a Cronbach’s α of .96 indicated item redundancy, and the 34-item scale is unwieldy in a survey-heavy culture. In addition, the most valuable outcome of student learning is actual grades, which remained to be assessed. In the current study, we relied on principal component analysis to reduce the number of items on the Professor–Student Rapport scale and examine predictive power of fewer items. We measured traditional student outcomes such as attitudes, motivation, and perceived learning. We also assessed end-of-semester grades to remove any potential student bias in learning or grade reporting. Six rapport items concerning student engagement and enjoyment of a course predicted all student outcomes, including course grades.

Prolactin in rats is attenuated by conspecific touch in a novel environment.

Prolactin is released in response to physical and psychological stress, the latter of which involves an animal’s interpretation of its environment as potentially dangerous. This interpretation might be altered by social buffering, as defined by the presence of a social partner. In support of this claim, I previously found that the presence of a conspecific during exposure to the open field caused lower levels of prolactin in juvenile rats than did exposure to the open field alone. Because testing with a conspecific allowed the animals to touch, physical contact may have been necessary for the reduction of prolactin. To test this hypothesis, juvenile male and female rats in the present study were exposed to the open field (1) alone, (2) with a conspecific separated by a Plexiglas partition, or (3) with a conspecific without a partition. Touch was necessary to reduce stress as measured by prolactin levels.

Early Postnatal Alcohol Exposure in Rats: Maternal Behavior and Estradiol Levels

Long Evans male and female rats were exposed to alcohol or control conditions during the early postnatal period, and their maternal behavior was assessed between 25 and 29 days of age. Maternal behavior was induced by exposing experimental animals to pups, and behaviors included retrieval of pups and proximity to pups. After 5 days of continuous exposure to pups, experimental animals were decapitated, and trunk blood was measured for levels of estradiol and progesterone. Alcohol-exposed animals showed a deficit in maternal behavior as measured by a longer latency to retrieve pups than rats that were not treated with alcohol. In addition, alcohol-exposed animals had lower levels of circulating estradiol than controls. These effects may also be explained by undernutrition as a result of artificial rearing. No difference in progesterone levels was found. As estradiol is important for the onset of maternal behavior in adult rats, it may be that the alcohol-induced decrease in estradiol levels underlies the deficit in maternal behavior exhibited by alcohol-exposed rats.

E-Mail from Professor Enhances Student Motivation and Attitudes

Traditionally, professors use the first day of class to build rapport. However, current technology allows professors to contact students prior to the first day of class. This study assessed how the receipt of a welcoming e-mail from a female professor 1 week before the first day of class affected student motivation and attitudes toward the instructor and course. Introductory psychology students evaluated the professor at 3 time points throughout the semester. Several outcomes indicated that an e-mail sent before the semester began was sufficient to enhance motivation and attitudes toward the instructor and course on the first day (and, for female students, throughout the semester) and also impacted student retention. Thus, a welcoming e-mail might offer an easy way for professors to communicate immediacy to their students before they even enter the classroom.

Psychometric Characteristics Of The Professor-Student Rapport Scale

In this study, the authors assessed the psychometric properties of the Professor–Student Rapport Scale, the first scale to measure professor–student rapport. The scale was found to have adequate test–retest and internal-consistency reliability. In addition to these findings, measures used to determine convergent validity included the Working Alliance Inventory, a social support scale, and a measure of verbal aggressiveness. The rapport scale was found to significantly correlate in the expected direction with these measures. Specifically, the rapport scale correlated positively with the Working Alliance Inventory and the social support scale and correlated negatively with the verbal aggressiveness scale. Applications are discussed in terms of using the scale to identify areas of improvement in teaching practices and the potential usefulness of the scale for predicting student outcomes.

RateMyProfessors.com offers biased evaluations

RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is becoming an increasingly popular tool among students, faculty and school administrators. The validity of RMP is a point of debate; many would argue that self‐selection bias obscures the usefulness of RMP evaluations. In order to test this possibility, we collected three types of evaluations: RMP evaluations that existed at the beginning of our study, traditional in‐class evaluations and RMP evaluations that were prompted after we collected in‐class evaluations. We found differences in the types of evaluations students provide for their professors for both perceptions of professor clarity and ratings of professor easiness. Based on these results, conclusions drawn from RMP are suspect and indeed may offer a biased view of professors.

Prolactin levels in juvenile and adult rats following acute restraint and the open field

Acute restraint and exposure to a novel environment alter behavior and increase prolactin levels in rats quickly and reliably. However, little research is available that examines behavior and levels of prolactin as a result of acute exposure to one stressor immediately followed by a second stressor. Similarly, a relationship between prolactin and behavior has not been established. In the present study, juvenile (35-day-old) and adult (5-month-old) rats were either placed in a novel open field for 10 min or restrained for 10 min prior to exposure to the open field. Restrained juveniles groomed more than control juveniles and restrained adults. Conversely, restraint + open field reduced ambulation and rearing among juvenile males and females, and adult females ambulated less than control females and restrained males across both behaviors. In addition, results from the present study demonstrated the first reported relationship between prolactin and open-field behaviors. Prolactin was positively correlated with rearing and number of fecal boli, and levels were negatively correlated with freezing. Among adult females, prolactin levels were lower following restraint + open field than after exposure only to the open field. This may be explained by the psychological response to the open field when it directly followed the physical stressor of acute restraint.