Compelled To Care? Exploring College Instructors’ Conceptualizations And Expressions Of Care Toward Students

This dissertation research explores how college instructors perceive and demonstrate care toward students. This research also seeks to consider how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced instructors’ caring behaviors. Although instructor care has been linked to several positive student outcomes, including persistence, little research has examined caring behaviors from the instructor’s perspective. In addition, how the pandemic’s aftermath continues to transform college teaching and learning is an area ripe for further scholarly investigation. Findings from semi-structured interviews and interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed that faculty conceptualize caring behaviors as a negotiated relationship between instructor and student. This negotiated relationship was characterized by responding to students as unique individuals, balancing care with expectations for the student, and investing significant emotional labor into the relationship. Furthermore, the findings indicated that faculty experienced significant challenges during and after the pandemic. Such challenges included addressing the exceptional needs of today’s college student, adjusting to online learning environments, and navigating an often-demoralizing climate in higher education. Keywords: instructor caring, Covid-19, ethic of care, college faculty, phenomenology

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Year

2024

Author dc:creator

• Kimmel, Krista

• college faculty;Covid-19;ethic of care;instructor caring;phenomenology
• Higher Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/839

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:encompass.eku.edu:etd-1837