Predicting Student Attitudes and Grades from Perceptions of Instructors' Attitudes

Abstract

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.