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College student attendance: impactof instructor immediacy and verbalaggressionKelly A. RoccaPublished online: 03 Feb 2007.

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Communication EducationVol. 53, No. 2, April 2004, pp. 185–195

Brief Report

College Student Attendance: Impactof Instructor Immediacy and VerbalAggressionKelly A. Rocca

This study examined the attendance behaviors of undergraduate students. Much of theexisting literature had focusesd on student variables in determining attendance in theclassroom. In the present study, the focus was on students’ perceptions of instructorbehaviors instead. Students completed questionnaires and reported their own attendancein class, as well as their perceptions of their instructor’s nonverbal immediacy and verbalaggression. Results indicated that perceived teacher immediacy was positively related tostudent attendance in class, whereas perceived instructor verbal aggressiveness wasinversely related to attendance. This study implies that teachers have the power toimprove student attendance patterns by altering certain of their communicative behav-iors.

Keywords: attendance; communication; classroom; instructor; immediacy; verbalaggression; students

One of the biggest complaints that college instructors have is the poor attendance intheir classes (Van Blerkom, 1992). Approximately one third of students are absentfrom class on any given day (Romer, 1993). Although a number of scholars agreethat absenteeism is a serious problem in higher education (e.g., Devadoss & Foltz,1996), it has been overlooked in the instructional communication literature. Thefollowing report addresses this concern by looking briefly at previous research onclassroom attendance and the impact of instructor communication behavior.Specifically, this study argues that absenteeism rates are affected by an instructor’snonverbal immediacy (which relates to other positive outcomes in the classroom)

Kelly A. Rocca (EdD, West Virginia University, 2000) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech,Communication Sciences, and Theater at St. John’s University, 300 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301,USA. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Instructional Division of the Eastern Communi-cation Association, April, 2001, Portland, ME. Kelly A. Rocca can be contacted at roccak@stjohns.edu

ISSN 0363–4523 (print)/ISSN 1479–5795 (online) 2004 National Communication Association

DOI: 10.10/03634520410001682447

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and by verbal aggression (which relates to other negative outcomes in the class-room).

Attendance

Several researchers have looked at reasons that students do or do not come to class.Reasons dependent upon student decisions include: paying for one’s own education(Devadoss & Foltz, 1996; Galichon & Friedman, 1985), student motivation (De-vadoss & Foltz, 1996), doing work for other classes (Van Blerkom, 1992), being tiredor sick (Van Blerkom, 1992), weather conditions (Galichon & Friedman, 1985),using alcohol or other drugs (Galichon & Friedman, 1985), having alternate ways tolearn or get notes (Galichon & Friedman, 1985; Romer, 1993), and feeling that theclass was boring (Van Blerkom, 1992). Other variables influencing attendanceinclude characteristics typically beyond the control of the student such as: classmeeting times (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996), class meeting days (Galichon & Friedman,1985), and class size (Romer, 1993).

While it is important to recognize these student-related factors in predicting andunderstanding absenteeism, the focus of this particular study is on the impact of theinstructor on attendance, an area of research that has been neglected. Findingsregarding instructor influence on attendance are rare and can be summarized asfollows: students were more likely to go to class when they liked their instructors(Galichon & Friedman, 1985), when instructors won previous teaching awards(Devadoss & Foltz, 1996), and when instructors had higher marks on studentevaluation forms (Romer, 1993). (For a full review of literature on attendance, seeRocca, in press.)

Because most of the attendance literature has focused on student or classroomvariables, it has been noted that “further research … with a variety of populations”is warranted (Beaulieu, 1984, p. 130). This study considers the population ofinstructors, rather than students, by looking at perceived immediacy and verbalaggression, which have shown, respectively, positive and negative effects in theinstructional literature.

Immediacy

The concept of immediacy has received much attention in instructional communi-cation literature over the past two decades. Numerous studies have been conductedusing immediacy as a central or underlying concept, and findings have beenoverwhelmingly positive (for a summary of the early research in this area, seeMcCroskey & Richmond, 1992). Social psychologist Albert Mehrabian stronglyinfluenced research on this topic by defining the concept of immediacy in terms ofhis “principle of immediacy,” which states “people are drawn toward persons andthings they like, evaluate highly, and prefer; and they avoid or move away fromthings they dislike, evaluate negatively, or do not prefer” (Mehrabian, 1971, p. 1).Immediacy relates to approach and avoidance behaviors and can be thought of as theperceived distance between people (Andersen, 1979; Mehrabian, 1971).

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Attendance 187

In recent years, several studies have found positive associations between students’perceptions of instructor immediacy behaviors and classroom variables includingstudent affect (Gorham, 1988), student cognitive learning (Chesebro & McCroskey,2001; Christophel, 1990; Kelley & Gorham, 1988; Titsworth, 2001), perceivedinstructor competence, caring and trustworthiness (Thweatt, 1999), and positivestudent evaluations (Moore, Masterson, Christophel, & Shea, 1996). When studentsgive teachers more positive evaluations, they also have a tendency to attend classmore often (Romer, 1993). This pattern of positive classroom behavior provides apossible link between immediacy and attendance. Another possible link comes fromthe findings on student motivation. Both instructor immediacy (Christophel, 1990;Christophel & Gorham, 1995; Frymier, 1993, 1994) and class attendance (Devadoss& Foltz, 1996) are related to increased student state motivation. Possibly, studentswho have this state motivation to learn the material are those same students who aremotivated to attend class. Given these suggested links between attendance andinstructor immediacy, it seems probable that perceived teacher immediacy encour-ages students to attend class, and its absence discourages them. Thus, the firsthypothesis is proposed:

H1: There is a negative relation between reported class absences and instructornonverbal immediacy.

Verbal Aggression

Since its conceptualization, verbal aggression has received much attention (Infante &Rancer, 1996; Infante & Wigley, 1986). Verbal aggression is a destructive behaviorwhich has been defined as “using verbal and nonverbal communication channels inorder, minimally, to dominate and perhaps damage or, maximally, to defeat andperhaps destroy another person’s position on topics of communication and/or theother person’s self-concept” (Infante, 1987, p. 164) and includes such behaviors as:“character attacks, competence attacks, insults, maledictions, teasing, ridicule, pro-fanity, threats, and nonverbal indicators” (Infante, 1987, p. 182). All of these aremethods of attack with potentially damaging effects.

Whether a message is perceived as aggressive is a function of four differentviewpoints (an individual, a dyad, an observer, and society; Infante, 1987, 1988). Allof these perspectives are valid depending on the circumstances under which thepotential aggression occurs (Infante, Myers, & Buerkel, 1994). When it comes toteachers’ verbal aggression, then, it is important to obtain students’ perceptions oftheir instructors, and there have been several negative findings associated with verbalaggression in the classroom.

Perceived instructor verbal aggression in the classroom has been found to berelated to a defensive classroom climate (Kearney, Plax, Hays, and Ivey, 1991; Myers& Rocca, 2001), low student state motivation (Myers, 2002; Myers & Rocca, 2001),student perceptions of the instructor as less competent, less immediate, and lessappropriate (Martin, Weber, & Burant, 1997), low student affect (Myers & Knox,

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1999, 2000), student perceptions of the instructor as noncredible on all threedimensions of credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring; Myers, 2001), lowstudent satisfaction (Myers, 2002; Myers & Knox, 2000), low student cognitivelearning (Kearney et al., 1991; Myers, 2002), and low perceived instructor immedi-acy (Rocca & McCroskey, 1999). The findings thus far on verbal aggressionin the classroom have been overwhelmingly negative, and given this pattern,one would expect that other outcomes in the classroom would be negativelyrelated to verbal aggression as well. When students do not feel that they are in asupportive, comfortable climate, they are less likely to attend class (Devadoss &Foltz, 1996). Verbally aggressive classrooms are seen as unsupportive, and studentsreport feeling less motivated when their instructors are verbally aggressive (Myers& Rocca, 2001). It therefore seems probable that students would be less likely toattend class in this type of negative environment. Thus, a second hypothesis isproposed:

H2: There is a positive relation between reported class absences and perceived teacherverbal aggression.

Method

Participants

Participants were 189 undergraduate students in two service courses at a largemid-Atlantic university. The average age of the sample was 21.13 (SD � 3.9), and thesample consisted of 52.4% male (n � 99) and 47.6% female (n � 90) respondents.Participation was voluntary and took place during regular class time, and studentsearned minimal extra credit for their participation.

Design and Instrumentation

Students were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on the teacher they had in theclass just prior to that in which they completed the questionnaire. This procedureassures diversity in both instructors and courses and has been used successfully inmany previous studies (Christophel, 1990; Christophel & Gorham, 1995; Gorham,1988; McCroskey, Fayer, Richmond, Sallinen, & Barraclough, 1996; Thomas, Rich-mond, & McCroskey, 1994). Questionnaires were completed during the week beforefinals week in the semester to assure that students had enough time in the classroomto be able to report on their instructors’ behaviors.

The distributed questionnaires contained: (a) attendance measures, (b) the ten-item Nonverbal Immediacy Measure (Thomas et al., 1994), (c) a ten-item modifiedversion of the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (Infante & Wigley, 1986), and (d)demographic questions. Three questionnaires that consisted of incomplete or inac-curate information were discarded.

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Attendance 189

Attendance measures were self-reports from students who were asked (a) howfrequently they had missed class throughout the semester (M � 1.82, SD � 1.06), (b)how frequently they attended the given class (M � 4.43, SD � .88), and (c) howmany days they missed class throughout the semester (M � 3.67, SD � 5.89). For thefirst two of these self-reports of attendance, participants indicated their responses ona five-point scale ranging from “almost always” to “never.” For the latter measure,participants supplied a number of missed days. As a check for validity, a separatesheet was attached to the questionnaire for students to complete. They were askedto report how many times they missed the communication class in which they werecompleting the survey. Their reported number of absences (in the current course)was then compared to the actual number of absences (in the current course) asrecorded by the graduate teaching assistant. The validity correlation between theactual number of absences and the perceived number of absences (in the currentcourse) was r � .81, showing that that the self-report is a valid measure ofattendance.

The Nonverbal Immediacy Measure (Richmond, Gorham, & McCroskey, 1987)has been shown in numerous studies to be both reliable and valid. It has been foundto have internal consistencies of .70 or higher (Thomas et al., 1994) and predictivevalidity between teachers and students (Gorham & Zakahi, 1990; McCroskey,Fayer et al., 1996). The revised ten-item version was used in the present workbecause of previous studies in which four of the original 14 items (involving sitting,standing, and touching) were considered poor items (McCroskey, Sallinen, Fayer,Richmond, & Barraclough, 1996). The two items containing the word “smiles” werereworded to read “frowns,” as recommended by McCroskey, Fayer et al. (1996). Inthis study (M � 30.03, SD � 6.52), the internal consistency for the 10-item scale was.86.

The Verbal Aggression Scale has been found to be both reliable and valid inassessing verbal aggression (Infante & Wigley, 1986). In its original form, it is a20-item Likert-type scale, with response categories ranging from almost never true(1) to almost always true (5). The internal consistency of the original version hasbeen .80 or above in several studies (see Infante & Rancer, 1996), and it has beenfound to have both content (DeWine, Nicotera, & Parry, 1991) and constructvalidity (Infante & Rancer, 1996). For this study, two changes were made to theoriginal version. First, this version was limited to ten items to discourage participantfatigue, and second, the wording was adapted to fit the instructional environment inthat each item read “my teacher” rather than “I.” (Copies of the revised instrumentare available from the author.) These two changes have been used successfully inprevious research (Myers, 1998, 2002; Myers & Knox, 2000; Myers & Rocca, 2001;Rocca & McCroskey, 1999). Even when the scale was adapted for different contexts(e.g., coaching, teaching), it has been shown to have internal consistencies of .78 to.92 (Bayer & Cegala, 1992; Boster & Levine, 1988; Infante, Chandler, & Rudd, 1989;Infante & Gorden, 1989; Myers, 2001; Myers & Rocca, 2001; Rocca, Toale, & Martin,2000). In the present study (M � 17.02, SD � 7.00), internal consistency for the10-item VA scale was .89.

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Table 1 Absence Results

Measure rn

Correlations between class absences and nonverbal immediacyHow frequently did you attend this class? .30*189

182How many times did you miss class this semester? � .10

Correlations between class absences and verbal aggression188 .36*How frequently did you miss your class this semester?

� .37*How frequently did you attend this class? 188How many times did you miss class this semester? 181 .11

*p � .01.

Results

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the impact of teacher communicationbehaviors, specifically nonverbal immediacy and verbal aggression, in relation toclass attendance of undergraduate college students. Two research hypotheseswere formulated and tested with Pearson correlations. The results are reported inTable 1.

Hypothesis 1 predicted a negative relationship between reported class absencesand nonverbal immediacy. This hypothesis was supported with two of the threeattendance measures. There were negative relationships between how frequentlystudents reported missing class (attendance measure 1) and perceived instructorimmediacy (p � .01) and between how frequently students reported attending class(attendance measure 2) and perceived instructor immediacy (p � .01). No significantrelationship was found between the number of reported absences (attendancemeasure 3) and perceived instructor immediacy. Thus, students who reportedattending class more frequently perceived their teachers as more immediate on twoof the three attendance measures.

Hypothesis 2 predicted a positive relationship between reported class absences andperceived teacher verbal aggression. This hypothesis was also supported with two ofthe three attendance measures. Significant relationships were found for attendancemeasure 1 and perceived instructor verbal aggression (p � .01) and for attendancemeasure 2 and perceived instructor verbal aggression (p � .01). No significantrelationship was found between attendance measure 3 and perceived instructorverbal aggression. Thus, students who perceived their instructors as being verballyaggressive were less likely to report attending class on two of the three attendancemeasures.

Discussion

The major goal of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of attendance in the

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Attendance 191

college classroom as it is related to instructor immediacy and verbal aggression.Findings indicated that students who perceived their teachers as higher in immediacywere more likely to go to class, and those who perceived their teachers as higher inverbal aggression were less likely to go to class. These findings both support andextend previous literature on the positive impact of instructor immediacy and on thenegative impact of instructor verbal aggression.

Limitations

All of the instruments included in this study were self-report measures provided bythe student. Self-report has been found to be both valid and reliable in severalstudies (see McCroskey & McCroskey, 1988). However, the possibility of socialdesirability bias still exists in any self-report instrument, and this may help inexplaining the problem with the attendance measure 3.

It appears as though students may have been overreporting their frequency ofattendance, especially for attendance measure 3, where approximately 71% ofstudents reported missing between zero and three classes. Attendance measures 1and 2 were skewed in the same direction, but the trend was not as sharp as it wasfor attendance measure 3. Perhaps the wording of the open-ended attendancemeasure created problems with interpretation. For example, students may haveinterpreted “how many times did you miss class?” to mean “how many unexcusedabsences?”, instead of “how many total days did you miss?”. Another possibility isthat students are better at gauging their absenteeism with Likert-type scales aimed atestimated figures, rather than giving an exact number.

In the class where data were collected for the validity check, attendance wasrequired. This also may help in explaining the lack of significant relationships forattendance measure 3, even though it was shown to be valid. Possibly, students werebetter at recalling the number of times they missed class in a course whereattendance was required, but they did not keep track of their attendance quite as wellfor their other classes (where attendance may not have been required) and thereforeestimated their attendance with less accuracy. Though the results were not in adifferent direction for attendance measure 3, the findings of the study should beinterpreted with some degree of caution.

Implications

What this study brings to light is that there are communication behaviors whichinstructors can engage in on a daily basis that have an impact on student attendance.Previously, attempts have been made by instructors to increase attendance in theirown classrooms (for a review, see Rocca, in press), but prior to this study, there wasno specific information about instructor communication and its impact on attend-ance. Through recent literature, we have become aware of the importance of effectiveclassroom communication. Now, we have gained a deeper understanding intoanother facet of instructional communication. These findings provide instructors

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with an additional reason to engage in immediate and nonaggressive behaviors—toget their students into the classroom! By increasing immediacy and decreasing verbalaggression, instructors may find that students come to class more often.

Specifically, instructors can step out from behind the podium or work on theirvocal variety to increase their immediacy or try to use fewer put-downs or sarcasmin their lectures to see what happens to their attendance over time. Anotherapplication of this is to pay special attention to immediate and aggressive behaviorson the days on which students tend to be more likely to miss class. For example,since classes that meet on Fridays have a notoriously low attendance (Van Blerkom,1992), instructors may want to use that day for building affect and increasingimmediacy or to be especially cautious of their use of sarcastic humor.

The findings reported here add to the numerous recommendations of instruc-tional researchers who advocate instructor immediacy and discourage instructorverbal aggression. It is important to recognize that instructors do have an impact onstudent behaviors, such as attendance, which ultimately may lead to learning.

Future Directions

Since this study is a first step in addressing the instructor as an influence in studentattendance, many questions arise regarding the next step in this line of research. Onebroad question to address in future research concerns which other instructorcommunication variables may also have an impact on student attendance (e.g.,clarity? humor?). Another question concerns the advancement of technology and thegrowing presence of online courses. Would the same results regarding immediacyand verbal aggression be found in a classroom where the instructor is seen througha television, and attendance is measured by logging in to a website?

Attendance is the prerequisite for classroom communication to occur, and futureresearch on attendance is warranted. “The clear challenge to educators is to identifyand implement measures that will increase class attendance” (Devadoss and Foltz,1996, p. 506). Through this study, one step has been taken to meet that challenge.

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Received June 4, 2004Accepted June 9, 2003

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Appendix

Modified Verbal Aggressiveness Scale as Given to Participants

Instructions: This survey is concerned with how others try to get people to comply with theirwishes. Indicate how often you believe each statement to be true for the teacher you had right beforethis class and how he or she behaves to influence students. Use the following scale:

Almost Never True Rarely True Occasionally True Often True Almost Always True1 2 3 4 5

My teacher is extremely careful to avoid attacking students’ intelligenceMy teacher makes students feel worthless and stupidWhen my teacher doesn’t like students’ behavior in class, he or she attacks their characterWhen students in my class do stupid things, my teacher tries to be extremely gentle withthemMy teacher tries to make students feel good about themselves even when they have stupidideas in classWhen students in my class won’t do what the teacher wants, the teacher loses his or hertemper with themMy teacher seems to make a great effort not to offend the students in my classWhen my teacher tries to explain things to us, he or she does not attack our intelligenceMy teacher often yells at students during classMy teacher seems to enjoy making fun of students in my class to the point where thestudents seem insulted

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