Students' Motives for Communicating with their Instructors: Considering Instructor Socio-communicative Style, Student Socio-communicative Orientation, and Student Gender

The Effect of Teacher Confirmation on Student Communication and Learning Outcomes

“…Although any verbal approach strategy (e.g., self-disclosure, personal recognition, and compliments) used by an instructor will increase student tendencies to communicate for all five motives (Mottet, Martin, & Myers, 2004), specific teacher behaviors elicit various student responses. For instance, students are more likely to communicate for the relational and sycophancy motives when they perceive their instructors as high in assertiveness and responsiveness but they are more likely to communicate for participatory reasons when they perceive their instructors as responsive only (Myers, Martin, & Mottet, 2002a). Instructor immediacy, however, is related positively to students' relational and functional motives and negatively to the excuse-making motive (Martin, Valencic, & Heisel, 2001).…”

“…For instance, students high in communication apprehension are less likely to communicate for functional, participatory, and relational motives (Martin, Valencic, & Heisel, 2002), whereas student assertiveness is associated positively with the functional, participatory, and excuse-making motives (Myers et al, 2002a). Additionally, students who communicate for the relational, sycophancy, and participatory motives report using more indirect and observing information-seeking strategies, whereas students who communicate for the functional motive rely on the overt information-seeking strategy (Myers, Martin, & Mottet, 2002b).…”

Relationships among perceived instructor verbal approach and avoidance relational strategies and students' motives for communicating with their instructors

“…Finally, it appears that students' motives for communicating with their instructors may be influenced more by those students' own communication traits than by how they perceive their instructors using communication in the classroom. Thus, teacher assertiveness and responsiveness (Myers, Martin, & Mottet, 2002b) and behavioral alteration techniques (Martin, Heisel, & Valencic, 2000) appear to exert scant impact on student motivation to communicate with their instructors. The functional communication motive is particularly dependent on student traits and relatively immune to perceived instructor communication style (Martin, Heisel, et al, 2000).…”

“…Prior research has examined the relationships between student communication motives and instructors' socio-communicative style, such as assertiveness and responsiveness (Myers et al, 2002b) and also between student motives for communicating and teacher communication style using Norton's (1978) Communicator Style Measure . The purpose of the present study was to extend this line of research by examining how students' communication motives are related to how they perceive their instructors using verbal approach and avoidance relational strategies in the classroom.…”

Do the Big-Five Personality Traits Predict Empathic Listening and Assertive Communication?

“…An assertive orientation is identified through characteristics such as independence, dominance, forcefulness and aggressiveness whereas a responsive orientation or style represents characteristics such as warmth, helpfulness, showing compassion and friendliness towards others. This area of research has been useful for investigating the influence that these different styles have in professional contexts such as teaching and medical practice, where effective communication with students and patients is of paramount importance (Myers, Martin & Mottet, 2002;Richmond, Smith, Heisel & McCroskey, 2002). Moreover, there is also some evidence that the Big-Five model does predict these two tendencies or preferences in communication style (Cole & McCroskey, 2000).…”