Teacher Matters: Teacher Normative Influence and Student Persistence in College

This dissertation extends the work on teacher immediacy (TI) and student persistence by using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985) to account for variability in college student persistence. Students provided perceptions of their teachers’ immediacy behaviors using modified versions of Gorham’s (1988) TI scale. Instruction prompts of the TI scale were manipulated to create four conditions. The results from Study 1 demonstrate that TI scale prompt language has an effect on the ways participants assess their teacher’s immediacy behaviors. The results from Study 2 show that student perceptions of their teacher’s immediacy behaviors change over the course of an academic semester, such that TI is statistically higher at the end of the semester than at the beginning, as measured by collecting data at four time points. The results from both studies generally support the hypotheses and suggest the TPB accurately predicts college student persistence. However, it is unclear how TI is influencing the overall TPB structural model. In some cases, adding TI to the TPB structural models resulted in a poorer fitting model. Discussions, limitations, and future research are provided for both studies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication

Grantor

Communication Studies

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Denham, Jonathan Paul

• teacher immediacy
• instructional communication
• student persistence
• theory of planned behavior

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Identifier

etd-07142014-135910
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/818

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.lsu.edu:gradschool_dissertations-1817