Patricia Kearney

College teacher misbehaviors: What students don't like about what teachers say and do

This investigation represents a substantial change in the way we examine classroom discipline and student resistance. Rather than focusing on student non‐compliance and other types of student misbehaviors, we examined teachers themselves as potential sources of instructional and/or motivational problems in the college classroom. Study 1 was designed to elicit inductively, college student reports of teacher misbehaviors. Results indicated 28 different categories of teacher misbehaviors. Study 2 was structured to (1) validate the obtained categories of teacher misbehavior types and (2) to determine whether or not a conceptually meaningful factor structure underlies the categories. Even though most students reported that the teachers referenced in study 2 infrequently engaged in each misbehavior type, a representative number of other teachers did. Importantly, the full range of frequencies was obtained across all 28 categories. Results were further corroborated with qualitative data. Factor analyses and fact...

Compliance‐resistance in the college classroom

Instruction in the college classroom is commonly, but inaccurately described as “easy to manage”; simply because students are supposed to have outgrown aggravating behaviors unique to adolescents. In fact, what college instructors face are new types of student resistance to their attempts to motivate on‐task learning behavior. Examining student resistance to teacher compliance‐gaining efforts, this investigation inductively derived a typology of students’ compliance‐resistance strategies that are frequently used in the college classroom. A sample of 574 college students constructed messages resisting one of four teacher compliance‐gaining scenarios. The unitizing and subsequent coding of 2,916 messages resulted in 19 separate categories which were then labeled. Research questions probed the impact of teacher immediacy and type of strategy employed by teachers on student message generation and whether likelihood of resistance was related to the number of messages generated.

Graduate Student/Faculty Mentoring Relationships: Who Gets Mentored, How It Happens, and to What End.

Given the importance of mentoring in the academic context, this study proposed five objectives. Analyses of surveys from 145 students across 12 universities and diverse disciplines, revealed first of all, a demographic profile of the typical graduate student protege and faculty mentor. Second, ten diverse communication strategies emerged that demonstrate how students initiate a mentoring relationship. Third, protege evaluations of their initiation attempts revealed their efforts to be somewhat ineffective and unduly difficult. Fourth, students reported their mentors to provide primarily psychosocial, rather than career support. And fifth, proteges characterized their mentoring relationships as extremely positive and satisfying. Results throughout are, for the most part, independent of both protege and mentor demographics (including ethnicity).

An attributional analysis of college students' resistance decisions

This investigation examined college students’ resistance decisions in the classroom. Initial validational tests of the resistance typology developed by Burroughs, Kearney, and Plax (1989) confirmed the existence of all 19 categories. Further analyses indicated that the categories could be meaningfully reduced to two dimensions of techniques: Teacher‐Owned (teacher is at fault) and Student‐Owned (student assumes responsibility). Relying on attribution theory and problem ownership, we tested the centrality of teacher immediacy as the primary attribute for students’ resistance decisions. Results from analyses of quantitative and qualitative data indicated that students reported a greater likelihood of using teacher‐owned techniques with nonimmediate teachers and student‐owned strategies with immediate teachers. Neither teachers’ compliance‐gaining strategy type (prosocial/ antisocial) nor students’ gender contributed to students’ resistance decisions. Implications for the classroom are discussed.

Experienced and prospective teachers' selections of compliance‐gaining messages for “common” student misbehaviors

Research has examined either prospective or experienced teachers’ reported use of Behavior Alteration Techniques (BATs). In extension, this study differentiates between both preteachers’ and experienced teachers’ cognitive schemes for classroom management. Respondents selected those strategies they would use to gain student compliance in misbehavior scenarios reflecting misbehavior type (active/passive) and intensity (frequent/occasional). Employing pro and antisocial BAT factors as criterion variables, four significant multivariate effects resulted. Experienced teachers reported using more pro and antisocial strategies than did prospective teachers. Both relied on antisocial techniques for active misbehaviors and pro social for passive; both pro and antisocial for frequent, as opposed to occasional, misbehaviors; and males were associated with more antisocial techniques. Implications are discussed in terms of design alternatives to the standard selectionist approach.

Instructional and Developmental Communication Theory and Research in the 1990s: Extending the Agenda for the 21st Century

In examining the state of the art in instructional and developmental communication, the authors define the scope of the Instructional and Developmental Communication Division of the International Communication Association. They then present an overview of the primary theories that have directed research in instructional communication since 1990 and identify the major areas of research, discussing representative studies within each area. Finally, they address major theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues of importance to instructional and developmental communication researchers and, based on in-depth review of the literature in this area, recommend more research attention to (a) teacher-student interactions, as opposed to studies that examine just teacher or student communication alone; (b) student-student interactions, including collaborative learning; and (c) the impact of technology on student outcomes. Moreover, the authors note that to facilitate systematic advancement of this area, researchers should work to (a) acknowledge the distinction between instructional communication and communication education, (b) initiate and sustain programs of research, and (c) precisely define constructs to avoid confusion resulting from conceptual and operational overlap.

The strategy selection‐construction controversy II: Comparing pre‐and experienced teachers' compliance‐gaining message constructions

Arguing in favor of the constructionist method of assessment, Burleson, Wilson, Waltman, Goering, Ely and Whaley (1988) indicted the selectionist method commonly employed in compliance‐gaining research. This study examines the functional equivalence of these two techniques for compliance‐gaining research in the classroom. Specifically, we begin by asking teachers to construct compliance‐gaining messages. Next, we analyze those messages to assess the relative sensitivity of this approach to those results previously obtained with selections from the Behavior Alteration Technique (BAT) checklist. Our results do not reflect the allegations leveled against the selectionist method. Alternatively, these data suggest that when compared to findings obtained with the selectionist procedure, the construction approach is less sensitive to real world differences that should exist; provides similar results for other known predictors; and is just as likely to elicit socially desirable prosocial messages. These results a...

The Strategy Selection-Construction Controversy: A Coding Scheme for Analyzing Teacher Compliance-Gaining Message Constructions.

Burleson, Wilson, Waltman, Goering, Ely and Whaley (1988) contend the constructionist approach is superior to and more valid than the strategy checklist (and every other approach, see Beatty, 1987). This study represents an initial attempt to assess the functional equivalence of the two techniques for compliance‐gaining research in the classroom. Specifically, we begin our task by developing a system for coding teachers’ message constructions. Next, we analyze those messages to assess the relative sensitivity of this approach to those results previously obtained with the Behavior Alteration Technique (BAT) checklist. Burleson et al. claim that message constructions provide “better”; data which are more sensitive to the influence of particular variables and more representative of “real world”; effects. Our data do not support such allegations. In fact, results indicate findings comparable to those obtained using the BAT checklist. While we argue for “functional equivalence”; overall, specific differences o...

Item desirability bias and the bat checklist: A reply to Waltman and Burleson

In response to Waltman and Burlesons indictment that the Kearney et al. Behavior Alteration Technique checklist suffers from an item desirability bias, we submit two major arguments which undermine altogether their claim. We illustrate that their entire allegation rests on first, a faulty premise (i.e., a distortion of the literature documenting what teachers actually do in the classroom) and second, on an indefensible research design which fails to test their contention.

Locus of control and personal constructs in students’ reactions to teacher compliance attempts: A reassessment

This study reassessed the conceptual basis, analysis, and interpretation of a recent study by Stewart, Kearney, and Plax (1985). Based on implicit personality theory, the personal constructs of internally and externally oriented students were thought to differ. These constructs were expected to engender different perceptions of teachers’ use of behavior alteration techniques (BATs) in the classroom. Students with an external locus of control perceived more frequent BAT use by teachers than did internally oriented students. Moreover, perceptions by externally oriented students deviated from the norm (moderates’ perceptions) more frequently than did the perceptions by internally oriented students.