Instructional Feedback II: How Do Instructor Immediacy Cues and Facework Tactics Interact to Predict Student Motivation and Fairness Perceptions?

Abstract

During feedback interventions (FIs), instructors may feel torn between directing students’ learning or maintaining productive rapport with them. Existing research suggests how instructional communication can achieve both outcomes. This study examined how students’ motivation to learn and perceptions of fairness were enhanced or eroded via particular instructional behaviors. Actual face-threat mitigation (FTM) tactics and teacher nonverbal immediacy (TNI) cues were manipulated in differing combinations to manage an FI situation, with varying effects on the outcome variables. Multivariate analysis detected main effects and a significant interaction effect between FTM and TNI regarding students’ motivation to learn, but main effects only for their perceptions of interactional fairness. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed in light of self-determination, facework, approach-avoidance, and feedback intervention theories.

Keywords:

• Face-Threat Mitigation
• Facework
• Fairness
• Feedback Intervention
• Identity Management
• Justice
• Motivation
• Nonverbal Approach Behaviors
• Self-Determination
• Teacher Nonverbal Immediacy

Acknowledgments

Data for this study were collected as part of a larger project that examined classroom communication phenomena pertaining to instructional feedback.

Notes

Note. IFOS = Instructional Feedback Orientation Scale; SMS = Student Motivation Scale; IFS = Instructor Fairness Scale.

*Correlation is significant at the .05 level.

**Correlation is significant at the .01 level.

Note. Means in rows with the same subscripts are not significantly different at p < .05.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeff Kerssen-Griep

Jeff Kerssen-Griep is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, University of Portland.

Paul L. Witt

Paul L. Witt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, Texas Christian University.