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...Mid-Atlantic university. Results indicate perceived instructor character and caring, but not perceived instructor competence, are positively related to student willingness to talk and (b) perceived instructor competence, character, and caring are positively related to student participation in student out-of class communcation. Future research should explore the specific attributions made by students considered to constitute perceived instructor competence. character, and caring.
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In the college classroom, students' perceptions of instructor credibility have important ramifications. Instructor credibility, which is defined as "the attitude of a receiver which references the degree to which a source is seen to be believable" (McCroskey, 1998, p. 80), consists of three dimensions: competence, character, and caring (Teven & McCroskey, 1997). Competence centers on an instructor's perceived knowledge or expertise in a subject matter (McCroskey, 1998). Character refers to the "goodness" (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness) of an instructor (Frymier & Thompson, 1992). Caring focuses on whether an instructor expresses concern about students' welfare (McCroskey, 1998). Although an instructor may exhibit one dimension more so than the other two dimensions, a highly credible instructor exhibits all three dimensions (McCroskey, 1998).
Generally, perceived instructor credibility is positively associated with perceived teaching effectiveness. Instructors who demonstrate competence, character, and/or caring are perceived to engage in a variety of effective instructional communication behaviors such as argumentativeness (Schrodt, 2003), verbal and nonverbal immediacy (Johnson & Miller, 2002), affinity seeking (Frymier & Thompson, 1992), and assertiveness and responsiveness (Martin, Chesebro, & Mottet, 1997). Moreover, credible instructors are perceived to be low in verbal aggressiveness (Martin, Weber, & Burant, 1997; Myers, 2001; Schrodt, 2003) and less likely to use behaviors that interfere with student learning (Thweatt & McCroskey, 1998).
At the same time, students enrolled in courses with instructors whom they perceive as credible are motivated (Frymier & Thompson, 1992; Martin, Chesebro et al., 1997) and report gains in affective and cognitive learning (Johnson & Miller, 2002; Russ, Simonds, & Hunt, 2002; Teven & McCroskey, 1997). Furthermore, students recommend these instructors to their friends (Nadler & Nadler, 2001), have respect for these instructors (Martinez-Egger & Powers, 2002), evaluate these instructors highly (Teven & McCroskey, 1997), feel their instructors understand them (Schrodt, 2003), and plan to take an additional course from these instructors (Nadler & Nadler, 2001).
Together, the findings obtained in the aforementioned studies suggest instructor credibility results in favorable outcomes for both instructors and students. Yet, what is missing from this body of research is whether perceived instructor credibility is related to students' communication with their instructors. One way in which students communicate with their instructors occurs during class and revolves around communicating for functional reasons. These functional reasons include asking questions (West & Pearson, 1994), seeking information (Myers & Knox, 2001), and challenging course policy and procedure (Simonds, 1997). But aside from communicating for these functional reasons, little research has focused solely on whether students are willing to talk in class. Although a host of structural variables such as class size, the physical arrangement of the classroom, the time of day, and the length of class impact student participation (Berdine, 1986), student willingness to talk (WTT) is also influenced by student interest and involvement in the subject matter and the discussion topic (Christensen, Curley, Marquez, & Menzel, 1995). Subsequent...
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