An Exploration of College Instructors' Use of Classroom Justice, Power, and Behavior Alteration Techniques

Abstract

A growing body of research indicates that classroom justice concerns are important to students. When students perceive their instructors are not concerned about justice, they report a host of negative outcomes. Due to the importance of justice assigned to students, the present study sought to understand how instructors view justice. Results indicated that college instructors view interactional justice as the most important fairness component. Their use of power and antisocial behavior alteration techniques (BATs) plays a role in these fairness judgments, accounting for a significant amount of variance in procedural and interactional justice. However, power and antisocial BATs use appear to play little role in instructors' concerns over distributive justice. Results, limitations, and future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Classroom Justice
• Power Bases
• Behavior Alteration Techniques

Aknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2009 meeting of the National Communication Association, Chicago. The authors had no involvement with the editorial process on this manuscript.

Notes

1. The distributive justice items included were (1) It is important to grade all students' work fairly, (2) It is important that students' expected grades match their actual grades, (3) It is important that student grades reflect the effort they put into the assignment/exam, (4) It is important that student grades on individual assignments/exams match their overall performance in the course, (5) It is important that student grades in my class reflect the grade that most other students at this university would have received in my class, and (6) It is important that students' perceive the grade they received is fair. The procedural justice items included (1) It is important that my policies on missed work make-ups are fair, (2) It is important that my course attendance policies are fair, (3) It is important that my grading scale is fair, (4) It is important that my course schedule of topics is fair, (5) It is important that the way I conduct class discussions is fair, (6) It is important that way I call on students is fair, (7) It is important the way I conduct class is fair, (8) It is important that my course syllabus is fair, (9) It is important that my scheduling of exams is fair, (10) It is important that I have fair expectations of students, (11) It is important that the types of exam questions I ask are fair, (12) It is important that the amount of work required to earn a good course grade is fair, (13) It is important that the number of exam items I ask is fair, (14) It is important the difficulty level of my course is fair, and (15) It is important that the scheduling of homework and written assignments is fair. The interactional justice items included were (1) It is important that I treat students fairly, (2) It is important that my communication to students is fair, (3) It is important that the way I listen to students is fair, (4) It is important that the manner in which I deal with students is fair, (5) It is important that the way I talk to students is fair, (6)It is important that the way I consider students' opinions is fair, and (7) It is important that the way I handle students who disagree with my opinion is fair.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sean M. Horan

Sean M. Horan (Ph.D., West Virginia University, 2009) is an Assistant Professor at DePaul University

Scott A. Myers

Scott A. Myers (Ph.D., Kent State University, 1995) is a Professor at West Virginia University