Rapport traditionally has been measured in therapy or in other one-on-one relationships such as with roommates. As yet, no scale is available to measure professor-student rapport. In this study, 51 undergraduates created items to measure professor-student rapport, and subsequently, 195 different college students rated their agreement with items based on their professor. Factor analysis revealed 1 meaningful component of professor-student rapport represented by 34 items. Rapport correlated with professor immediacy, providing convergent validity. Hierarchical linear regression with immediacy entered first and rapport entered second revealed significant improvement in prediction of student attitudes toward the instructor and the course as well as student motivation, perceptions of learning, and self-reported grades. Thus, we propose that professor-student rapport as measured by the current scale serves as a useful predictor of valuable student outcomes.

We conducted a preregistered multilaboratory project ( k = 36; N = 3,531) to assess the size and robustness of ego-depletion effects using a novel replication method, termed the paradigmatic replication approach. Each laboratory implemented one of two procedures that was intended to manipulate self-control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of self-control. Confirmatory tests found a nonsignificant result ( d = 0.06). Confirmatory Bayesian meta-analyses using an informed-prior hypothesis (δ = 0.30, SD = 0.15) found that the data were 4 times more likely under the null than the alternative hypothesis. Hence, preregistered analyses did not find evidence for a depletion effect. Exploratory analyses on the full sample (i.e., ignoring exclusion criteria) found a statistically significant effect ( d = 0.08); Bayesian analyses showed that the data were about equally likely under the null and informed-prior hypotheses. Exploratory moderator tests suggested that the depletion effect was larger for participants who reported more fatigue but was not moderated by trait self-control, willpower beliefs, or action orientation.

Teaching experts assert that the first day of class impacts students, with potential negative effects lasting the entire term. However, no empirical research supports this supposition. We randomly assigned students to view a video of their professor either providing a positive or negative first-day experience. Students with the positive experience reported better attitudes and more positive expectations at the end of the first day. Although several differences dissipated by the end of the first week, students with the positive first-day experience reported higher motivation for the majority of the course, and their grades were significantly higher by the end of the term.

Psychological availability to students defines immediacy, a concept traditionally measured using ratings of instructor behaviors. However, students' perceptions of their professor's attitude toward them may serve as a more parsimonious measure of psychological availability. In fact, ratings of a professor's attitude toward students are positively related to student motivation, learning, and ratings of the instructor. In this study, prediction of student outcomes was analyzed in a 2-step regression: First, students' perceptions of their instructor's attitude entered into the equation, followed by immediacy scores. Instructor's attitudes predicted student outcomes well. Although some immediacy components increased variability explained, the increases were small.

In this study, the authors assessed the psychometric properties of the Professor-Student Rapport Scale, the first scale to measure professor-student rapport. The scale was found to have adequate test-retest and internal-consistency reliability. In addition to these findings, measures used to determine convergent validity included the Working Alliance Inventory, a social support scale, and a measure of verbal aggressiveness. The rapport scale was found to significantly correlate in the expected direction with these measures. Specifically, the rapport scale correlated positively with the Working Alliance Inventory and the social support scale and correlated negatively with the verbal aggressiveness scale. Applications are discussed in terms of using the scale to identify areas of improvement in teaching practices and the potential usefulness of the scale for predicting student outcomes.