You did what?!: graduate teaching assistant misbehaviors in multi-section introductory communication courses

ABSTRACT

The study explores graduate teaching assistants’ (GTAs) perceptions of misbehaviors of other GTAs across multi-section introductory communication courses. Utilizing the teacher misbehaviors’ typology, this study examines novice teachers’ perceptions of teacher misbehaviors. A convenience sample of current introductory course graduate teaching assistants (N = 55) responded to open-ended questions about what constituted teachers’ misbehaviors, why these communicative acts were perceived as misbehaviors, and how these misbehaviors were managed. Employing a thematic analysis, participants indicated the most frequent misbehavior related to indolence, followed by offensiveness and incompetence. Three new subcategories emerged as misbehaviors for this sample: inappropriate use of social media, coolness/peer affirmation, and dress/attire. Five categories for why behaviors and actions were perceived misbehaviors and six categories emerged as responses for managing the teacher misbehavior. The findings offer practical solutions and pedagogical suggestions for GTAs and course directors.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher misbehaviors
• graduate teaching assistants
• introductory communication course
• multi-section course
• social cognitive theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Other open-ended questions included: Why they perceived these statements or actions as misbehaviors?, How did you handle the misbehavior(s)?/What did you do about the misbehavior(s)? Who did you tell about the misbehavior(s)? Additionally, they were asked if they felt obligated to report the misbehavior(s)?.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luke LeFebvre

Luke LeFebvre (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Director of the Communication Training Center at Texas Tech University.

Leah E. LeFebvre

Leah E. LeFebvre (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama.

Gordana Lazić

Gordana Lazić (Ph.D., University of Denver) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Missouri State University.