The Effects of Student Responsiveness on Teachers Granting Power to Students and Essay Evaluation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of student responsiveness on teachers granting relational power to students, and to determine if this power influenced how teachers evaluated student essays. Rather than student verbal and nonverbal responsiveness interacting, student nonverbal responsiveness significantly impacted the coercive, reward, and referent power that teachers granted students. Student verbal and nonverbal responsiveness affected the expert power that teachers granted students. Nine to 18% of the variance in relational power was attributed to student responsiveness. Additionally, student referent power significantly predicted teachers’ evaluation of student essays accounting for 11% of the variance.