Instructional Dissent in the College Classroom

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to (a) identify perceived triggering agents of student dissent in the college classroom, (b) determine common target receivers of dissent, and (c) reveal the types of dissent that students enact based on their intentional motives and construction of message content. Participants were 123 undergraduate students who completed a survey and provided multiple written narratives in response to open-ended questions. Results of a content analysis revealed that (a) common perceived triggering agents of dissent included (in rank order) unfair testing/assignments, unfair grading, and teaching style, followed by instructor offensiveness, policy, violating syllabus, instructor indolence, lack of feedback, and group members slacking; (b) target receivers of dissent were primarily the class professor, classmates, friends, and family members, among others; and (c) students engaged in three types of dissent including expressive dissent (i.e., to vent their feelings and frustrations), rhetorical dissent (i.e., to attempt to correct a perceived wrongdoing by the instructor), and vengeful dissent (i.e., to retaliate and ruin the reputation of an instructor).

The Development and Validation of the Instructional Dissent Scale

“…(p. 215). Goodboy (2011) found that this was the case as student narratives revealed certain teacher misbehaviors (i.e., unfair testing, unfair grading, teaching style issues, offensiveness, and indolence) were causes of student dissent responses. However, these results which were derived from qualitative data were not statistically demonstrated.…”

“…In another qualitative study, Goodboy (2011) examined the triggering agents of instructional dissent, the recipients of dissent messages, and the types of dissent communicated by college students, and reported three major conclusions. First, Goodboy found that a variety of triggering agents cause students to dissent.…”

“…Of interest to the current study are Goodboy's (2011) qualitative findings concerning expressive, rhetorical, and vengeful dissent. As Horan et al (2010) noted, ''measures of students' behavioral reactions should include assessments of student dissent.…”

Priest as Teacher II: Understanding Priests’ Communicative Misbehaviors

“…It is probable that the relational dimension the Priest had established encouraged such a direct approach, along with personality dimensions of the parishioner. Indirect reactions primarily included sharing the incident, a component of dissent, an active classroom behavior (Goodboy, 2011a;Horan et al, 2010). Still, and unfortunately, some people reported leaving the Church.…”

“…For religious communication scholars, the application of instructional communication to a church setting provides an additional lens to understand and study this context. Importantly, as misbehaviors are linked to outcomes typically studied in organizations, such as fairness (Chory-Assad, 2002;Goodboy, 2011a;Horan, Chory, & Goodboy, 2010) and dissent (e.g., Goodboy, 2011b), further understanding misbehaviors is of value to those who study organizational communication. Carrell (2009) argued the communicative implications of religious communication, specifically: "face-to-face public speaking is an obvious central and regular task of the professional life of the clergy" (Carrell, 2009, p. 15).…”