How Do Students' Perceptions of Instructors' Interpersonal Goals Affect Students' Classroom Experience
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Date
2013-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
A positive instructor-student relationship is highly important in any classroom. It determines the classroom experiences the student will have and contributes in many ways to the outcome of success the student will have. We investigated the effect of college instructors' compassionate and self-image goals for teaching and how student perceptions of these goals are relate to their classroom experiences. Students rated their best, worst, and most recent instructor and evaluated their instructors' goals and experiences in the classroom. We predicted that students reflecting on their best instructor were more likely to perceive compassionate goals than students reflecting on their worst instructor. We also predicted that students would report greater enjoyment, and more positive attitudes when rating instructors with compassionate goals compared to instructors with self-image goals. Results showed support for our hypotheses, that instructor compassionate goals predicted positive experiences (i.e. attendance, enjoyment, liking the instructor, etc.) in the classroom as opposed to instructors with self-image goals. Gaining knowledge about instructor characteristics that lead to student success is an important step to take to further research in the fields of psychology and pedagogy.
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Keywords
interpersonal goals, students, instructors, classroom experience, learning, compassionate goals, self-image goals