The purpose of this study was to examine students’ motives for communicating with their instructors. Students were first asked why they communicate with their instructors. Based on their responses, a questionnaire was constructed that included these reasons and their interpersonal communication motives for communicating with their instructors. The results of a factor analysis identified five underlying reasons students communicate with their instructors: relational, functional, excuse, participation, and sycophancy. A canonical correlation analysis examined the relationship between these five reasons and participants’ trait interpersonal communication motives. Students who communicate with their instructors more often for all of the interpersonal communication motives tend to communicate more with their instructors to relate and participate, and to a lesser extent to offer excuses and for sycophantic reasons. The students who communicated for the interpersonal communication motive of control tended to communicate more in excuse making as well as to participate and for sycophantic reasons.

This report is a validity study involving the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (Martin & Rubin, 1995 Martin , M. M. , & Rubin , R. B. ( 1995 ). A new measure of cognitive flexibility . Psychological Reports , 76 , 623 – 626 . [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] ). Participants completed an online questionnaire. As predicted, cognitive flexibility was positively related to measures of intellectual flexibility and self-compassion, and negatively related to a measure of dogmatism. The prediction that cognitive flexibility would be negatively related to preference for consistency was not supported.

As a step in learning more about aggressive communication in families, this study investigated the similarities between three aggressive communication traits (argumentativeness, assertiveness, and verbal aggressiveness) of young adults and their parents. College students (N = 160) and their parents (N = 320) completed measures of their aggressive traits. Results showed that similarities existed between mothers and their daughters and sons for all three traits; however, no significant relationships between fathers and their daughters and sons for the traits were found.

Students ( N = 259) reported on their motives for communicating with their instructors along with completing measures of affective and cognitive learning. The relational, functional, and participatory motives tended to be positively correlated with learning, but there were no significant associations for excuse-making and sycophantic motives with learning.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of instructor in-class communicative behaviors on college student participation in out of class communication (OCC). Participants were 298 students enrolled in an introductory communication course at a Mid-Atlantic university who completed the Communication Functions Questionnaire, the modified Affinity-Seeking Strategy scale, and the Out of Class Interaction scale. Results of stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that student participation in OCC was predicted by perceived instructor use of the ego support and persuasive functional communication skills as well as perceived instructor use of the sensitivity, self-inclusion, inclusion of others, comfortable self, and supportiveness affinity-seeking strategies. Future research should examine if students choose not to participate in OCC based on instructor communicative behaviors and how this choice is reflected in their choice of particular communicative channels.

This ‐paper introduces the Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale and reports on two initial studies that address the reliability and validity of the scale. The Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale is an 18‐item measure of the amount of instructor self‐disclosure. In Study One, instructor self‐disclosure was positively related to the student motives of relational, excuse‐making, and sycophancy. In Study Two, instructor self‐disclosure was positively related to out‐of‐class communication, the student interest dimensions of meaningfulness and impact, and cognitive learning. Additionally, the Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale appears to be a unidimensional, internally reliable measure.