“Extra‐class” communication: Frequency, immediacy, self‐disclosure, and satisfaction in student‐faculty interaction outside the classroom

Abstract

Although hundreds of studies investigate in‐class communication in higher education, few assess student‐faculty interaction outside the classroom. This study explores students’ and instructors’ perceptions of “extra‐classroom” communication (ECC). Substantive differences are posited in four categories: frequency, content (self‐disclosure and task‐orientation), immediacy, and satisfaction. Since no instrument existed to measure such communication exclusively, parallel inventories for students and faculty were created using the ECC context. A community college was selected to test the efficacy of the inventories and to generate preliminary findings. Data were subjected to within group univariate analysis of all items by all factors; correlation, regression analysis, and MANOVA of summary variables; and matched between group comparisons of both individual and summary variables based on student or faculty status. Significant differences were found relative to status, sex, age, years in college, major, GPA, and other descriptors.