Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers Inappropriately: When Introductory Course Directors Engage in Misbehaviors

ABSTRACT

This study explores graduate teaching assistants’ experiences of perceived introductory course director misbehaviors. The investigation situates these experiences in the larger organizational dissent conversation – a heuristic that helps to frame how these perceived misbehaviors impact graduate teaching assistants’ understanding of their current and future work relationships with course directors. Participants (N = 55) were graduate teaching assistants in multi-section introductory communication courses across the United States who completed an online Qualtrics survey about their perceived introductory course director misbehaviors as well as how those misbehaviors were managed and shaped future interactions with their course directors. Thematic analysis identified indolent, offensive, and incompetence misbehaviors. The findings offer implications for improving organizational communication processes to positively impact the course director-graduate teaching assistant work relationship.

KEYWORDS:

• Misbehaviors
• introductory course directors
• graduate teaching assistants
• introductory communication course
• organizational dissent
• supervisor-subordinate communication

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The authors approach research questions from an interpretive perspective. We draw on theoretical criterion falling into the traditions of communication education and organization communication theory that often has used socio-psychological perspectives and employed quantitative/qualitative methodologies. As a collective research team, we draw on varying prominent paradigmatic approaches including: post-positivism, interpretivism, and critical.

In highlighting our experiences, all of the authors have been a GTA and include both US-centric and international-based perspectives from men and women. We acknowledge the changing higher education landscape and evolution of different experiences that has occurred since we were GTAs. One of our challenges in this line of research is tapping into GTA populations since we had minimal direct access to GTAs. We each served as GTAs in introductory communication courses as well as other instructor-led communication courses. Additionally, one author currently serves as an ICD, and one author has served as ICD at two different institutions aiding in the understanding of ICD roles.

We also recognize the privilege associated with sharing personal experiences and the power differential in having access and being able to offer their voice. We also recognize there are individuals who did not participate, left out of the conversation, and even forgotten in sharing misbehaviors, as well as harmed and hurt in their experiences. We recognize that this framework may not capture the full range of individual experiences of the research participants, but instead offers one interpretation of the topic.

2. When previewing the survey (or testing it for distribution), some individuals found inconsistency in applying and understanding the term “standardized” (see LeFebvre et al., 2020). We defined it for our participants as “the textbook and assignments students complete are identical across all course sections.” We added this distinction since standardization has also been attributed to increased perceptions of inequality in treatment among GTAs (LeFebvre et al., 2020).

3. Qualtrics indicated 110 unique click-ins; fewer participants were eligible and/or opted to complete the survey

4. The listserv were: COMMNotes, Basic Communication Course (basiccc) and National Communication Association (NCA) Student Section.

5. Some participants indicated no misbehaviors (as one unit) and then listed misbehaviors after that. We accounted for both responses as separate units.

6. Other included: communication research methods, first year seminar introduction to communication, media and economics, nonverbal communication, and strategic communication.

7. Other included: AmeriCorp Member serving in higher education and two individuals with joint status (doctoral student and adjunct faculty member at another institution as well as adjunct faculty member and admission recruiter).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luke LeFebvre

Luke LeFebvre (PhD, Wayne State University) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Kentucky. He has taught public speaking for two decades and been a course director. His research primarily explores classroom communication and instructional processes associated with the introductory public speaking course. Recent articles appear in Communication Education, Communication Quarterly, Communication Studies, Communication Teacher, Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Journal of the Association for Communication Administration, Journal of Educational Technology Systems, Review of Communication, and the Southern Communication Journal. He has also been a recipient of external funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, National Leadership Grants for Libraries, and National Science Foundation.

Leah E. LeFebvre

Leah E. LeFebvre (PhD, University of Texas) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. Her primary research focuses on communicative intersections on romantic relationships and emerging technology. She also investigates pedagogical practices and challenges conventional assumptions on the introductory communication courses, small group communication, and communication centers. Recent articles appear in Communication Education, Communication Theory, Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Personal Relationships, and Social Media+Society.

Heather J. Carmack

Heather J. Carmack ((PhD, Ohio University) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at University of Alabama. Her research explores micro and macro communication practices related to patient safety, including organizational culture, organizational policy, patient-provider communication about patient safety practices, and provider-centered socialization messages.

Gordana Lazić

Gordana Lazić (PhD, University of Denver, 2013) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Missouri State University where she also serves as the Director of the Basic Course. Her scholarship concerns the intersection of rhetoric, pedagogy, and politics.