Students' Early Impressions of Instructors: Understanding the Role of Relational Skills and Messages

Abstract

Research suggests that initial impressions are important and set the tone for future interactions; however, little is known about which teacher communication behaviors create positive initial judgments by students. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among a set of teacher relational communication behaviors and students' early judgments about the future outcomes of the course. Specifically, students reported perceptions of their instructors' use of power, confirmation, nonverbal immediacy, and communication skills in the beginning of a semester and their predictions about future interactions with that instructor. Results indicated that teachers' use of coercive and legitimate power were negatively related to students' predicted outcome value (POV) judgments, whereas the use of reward, referent, and expert power, along with confirmation and communication skills, were positively correlated with students' POV judgments. Hierarchical regression further revealed unique relational message predictors of these judgments.

Keywords:

• Confirmation
• Conversational Skills
• Power
• Predicted Outcome Value Theory

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2009 meeting of the National Communication Association's annual convention.

Notes

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Twenty-five participants reported that they had the teacher they were reporting on previously, meaning impressions of the instructor were already established. Thus, these responses were not included in analyses, and the usable responses included a sample of 157 participants.

Two recent studies reported that the legitimate power base barely achieved an acceptable reliability using samples of college students and teachers (Horan, Martin, & Weber, 2010; Horan & Myers, 2009). Related, using a sample of college teachers, the coercive power base was not reliable (Horan & Myers, 2009). See Goodboy, Bolkan, Myers, and Zhao (in press) for a related discussion of this scale's reliability concerns.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sean M. Horan

Sean M. Horan (PhD, West Virginia University, 2009) is an assistant professor in the College of Communication at DePaul University.

Marian L. Houser

Marian L. Houser (PhD, University of Tennessee, 2002) is an associate professor at Texas State University.

Alan K. Goodboy

Alan K. Goodboy (PhD, West Virginia University, 2007) is an assistant professor at Bloomsburg University.

Ann Bainbridge Frymier

Ann Bainbridge Frymier (EdD, West Virginia University, 1992) is a professor at Miami University.