Research Recap

This paper discusses students' attributions of instructor credibility as a function of teacher nonverbal immediacy, technology use, misbehaviors, and teaching philosophy. Credibility is defined as "the attitude toward a source of communication held at a given time by a communicator" (Schrodt & Witt, 2006, p. 1). Instructor credibility consists of three primary dimensions including competence, trustworthiness (or character), and perceived caring and is considered by instructional researchers to be one of the most important variables affecting the instructor-student relationship (Schrodt & Witt, 2006). By analyzing the relationship between these variables, an instructor can hope to better understand the correct amount of each needed, or not needed, in order to provide the best learning experience for their students.

Brief Literature Review

The first study examined the interaction effect of nonverbal immediacy and expected

instructional technology use on students' initial reports of instructor credibility. Participants included 549 college students who were randomly assigned to one of eight scenarios depicting first-day class sessions across four levels of technology use and two levels of nonverbal immediacy (Schrodt & Witt, 2006). Across all four technology conditions and all three dimensions of instructor credibility, students perceived instructors who were described as being highly immediate as more competent, trustworthy, and caring than instructors described as being nonimmediate. Their results tend to suggest that student expectations of nonverbal immediacy are primarily responsible for enhancing initial attributions of credibility, and so long as instructors avoid transforming their face-to-face classrooms into distance education formats, the appropriate use of technology to enhance students' learning experiences may add to the impact that nonverbal immediacy has on students' affect for the course and the instructor (Schrodt & Witt, 2006).

The second study investigated the effect of teacher misbehavior on student affect for the teacher and teacher credibility. Participants completed an Affect Toward Teacher Scale and a Source Credibility Scale in reference to one of four experimental conditions. The first two research questions examined the effect of misbehaviors on student affect for the teacher. Research questions three and four examined the influence of incompetent, indolent, and offensive teacher misbehaviors on student perceptions of teacher credibility. Credibility was significantly impacted by each individual type of misbehavior, with competence impacted the most by "incompetence", and caring and trustworthiness impacted the most by "offensiveness" (Banefield, Richmond & McCroskey, 2006). Results indicated that students perceived the experimental teachers to be less credible when any of the three types of misbehavior was present. Overall, the research found that teachers' credibility and students' affect for the teacher were impacted by teacher misbehaviors. Clearly, the teacher misbehavior conditions employed in the research, compared to the control condition, had a negative impact on all of the dependent variables studied. Because the dependent variables were highly correlated, particularly teacher affect with teacher credibility, a prediction can be made that both will be influenced by teacher misbehaviors in the classroom (Banefield, Richmond & McCroskey, 2006).

The purpose of the third study was to examine whether perceived instructor credibility differs based on instructor teaching philosophy. Participants