Organizational Orientations in an Instructional Setting

Abstract

Research on organizational orientations has determined that workers can be categorized into three groups on the basis of their trait orientations toward working in organizations: “upward mobiles,” “indifferents,” and “ambivalents.” Because workers’ organizational orientation is predictive of their success, we reasoned that students’ orientation would be similarly predictive of their motivations, perceptions of teacher credibility and immediacy, affect toward the teacher, subject matter, and school, and cognitive learning. The results indicate that students’ orientation toward school may be akin to those of workers in organizations. For the most part, upward mobile students were associated with greater success in school and perceived their teachers as more credible and immediate. Indifferent and ambivalent students were more negatively associated with success in school and reported their teachers to be less credible and immediate.

Keywords:

• Organizational Orientation
• Teacher Credibility
• Nonverbal Immediacy
• Motivation
• Affective Learning

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Tibbles

David Tibbles (M.A., West Virginia University, 2006) is a teacher of Speech and Debate at Waynesville High School, Waynesville, MO

Virginia P. Richmond

Virginia P. Richmond (Ph.D., University of Nebraska, 1977) is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

James C. McCroskey

James C. McCroskey (D. Ed., Pennsylvania State University, 1966) is a Scholar in Residence at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

Keith Weber

Keith Webber (Ed.D., West Virginia University, 1998) is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at West Virginia University in Morgantown