Summary of credibility in the classroom.

In order to fully explore this area of my research, we must look back at the methods that I used to gather data. In this section, each method will be analyzed and will discuss the findings for each method.

The first method that I used was pure observation. All of the work that I conducted was produced in my Comm 172f class. This class is held in HGH 225 every Thursday at 6:00 pm. During my observation of class, I took several notes. I took notes on times that students would pay attention and times that they would ignore the teacher. I took notes of level of involvement during the times when the teacher was talking. I also took into account the shifts in my perception of credibility and the factors that influence that positive or negative shift. When I first took back my notes, I found myself in a tough spot because of the challenges that were stated in the text. My notes were difficult to decipher at times. Some notes were just scribble marks or side notes. It was difficult to take notes, observe, and pay attention to class all at the same time. I did find from my notes that the teacher power and credibility are similar and play a role in the classroom. When the teacher or student did not control power in the classroom, the level of involvement was taken down and less attention was paid to either student or teacher. Teven & Herring state:

Teacher credibility closely parallels the teacher power although the two constructs are not isomorphic. While both teacher credibility and power are based on students, credibility is the attitude of a receiver toward the source based on the image that a perceptions particular teacher presents in class (being perceived as competent, trustworthy and/or caring) whereas teacher power is, as Richmond & McCroskey state ‘‘an individual’s capacity to influence another person to do something he/she would not have done had he/she been influenced’’ (as cited in Teven & Herring, 2005, p. 237).

It was difficult to separate perceptions such as these because it was difficult to observe the perception in a live setting. I have also found, through my notes, that it is difficult to judge credibility and respect. During my observations, I found that organization may have affected the student’s respect for the teacher. When the teacher seemed unorganized, student’s respect would go down as well. The respect level went down by student’s speaking over the teacher and not paying attention while the teacher was trying to make points about the material. I thought that student respect did play a role, but I was unsure about the significance that respect played in credibility. To me it seemed to play a significant role of the credibility of the teacher. Martinez-Egger & Powers (2003) state that “having access to student levels of respect for a teacher allows one to predict potential behavior as well as related perceptions that may have influence upon the learning process” (p.147). I didn’t think it was that significant of a role and I was not aware of the distinction. This article states that is a significant factor and many predictions can be based off of teacher respect.

The second mode of data collection relied on surveys. I passed out my surveys in one class period and collected the surveys after the class period was finished. In order to make sense of the data, it required me to code the surveys in different categories and codes. Since I was trying to code based on my literature review, two articles mainly helped me in this aspect of my project. First, I was unsure about using just the commonly threaded elements in credibility, so I looked at different articles to provide more detail or more specific information. The first article that expanded my view of different perceptions was the article written by Finn et al. They were able to define different elements that contributed to teacher credibility. For example, Finn et al. (2009) state:

Empathy refers to the teacher’s ability to see a situation from a student’s point of view. Understanding refers to the teacher’s ability to comprehend a student’s ideas, feelings, and needs, and responsiveness refers to the teacher’s ability to recognize and appropriately react to students in a timely manner (p.518).

In my survey I also had to account for the overlapping elements and elements that may have been combined together in other parts of the articles. For example, according to Frymier and Thompson ‘‘Competence refers to perceived knowledge and expertise in an area; character refers to perceived trustworthiness, goodness as a person, ability to be sympathetic, and willingness to act in the best interest of others’’ ( as cited in Henning, 2010, p.60). In this article, the author used a reference that combined trustworthiness and sympathy into character while other articles have made trustworthiness and caring independent of each other. Because there were different definitions, I had to be careful when I create my survey so that I do not overlap some of my terms.

Through the survey I found, based on 14 surveys, the level of contribution to credibility for each code that I used. My surveys were based on a 10 point system, so any contributor that had strength of 7 or over, I would classify as a strong contributor. Anything that range in the 6.99 or under would be classified as a neutral or weak contributor. Neutral contributors may have some contribution, but not significant. I found that most of the common contributors reached a score over 7 and non common contributors reached lower scores. The weak contributors scored as follows: physical attributes scored 5.28; laziness and disregard scored 6.07; peer comments scored 6.92; speech scored a 6.00. The stronger contributors scored as follows: appearance scored 7.85; time management scored 8.35; trustworthiness scored 9.07; competence scored 8.57; responsiveness scored 8.00; and caring scored as 8.60.

The outcomes of my findings were very interesting. I found that physical attributes such as; race, height, weight, gender, etc. were not strong contributors, but appearance such; dress, hygiene, and quality of materials was a stronger contributor to credibility. I did not expect any of the physical characteristics categories to fall into the stronger contributor range. The rest of the strong contributor characteristics seemed to be logical and did not take me by surprise. One weak contributor that I thought would be a strong contributor is the code of outside influences. I thought that this would be a stronger contributor based on my observations, but it did not turn out that way based on my research.

The last part of my data collection was based on student interviews. I was able to interview three students from my class. The answer gave me a little more detail and insight as opposed to the numbers that were presented in the survey. I initially did not think that I was going to get much data out the interviews, but I was pleasantly surprised. In the interviews, I would define credibility as trustworthiness, competence, and caring. I would start by asking the students if those factors contribute to teacher credibility. I would then ask them what they thought were other factors were in credibility in the classroom. One interviewee stated that teacher needs to be able to relate to the students. She stated that “when teachers are able to speak to the student on a student level, they can become more credible”. This is also back up by Teven (2007) as he has found through his research and states “A teacher who relates well with students is more likely to be perceived as a credible source” (p.435). But not all of the interviewees found this to be true. Another interviewee stated that “our teacher tries to relate to us by using specific types of language. Sometimes I do not find it appropriate and it does take away from her credibility. Times when she uses sexual language or profanity, it changes my view of her and I feel like her credibility is affected by this”.

These conflicting responses left me a little perplexed, but there are factors that may outweigh each other. Using the last example of language use and trying to relate to the student, I found that some factors can overtake other factors like teacher misbehaviors. Goodboy & Bolkan (2009) state that “teacher misbehaviors negatively impede effective instruction. . . Offensiveness behaviors generate insulting messages” (p.205). To me this states that some contributors can be overtaken by other contributors based on the strength of a contributor.

After looking at all of the data collected, there are several different factors that are incorporated in the credibility of the classroom. I originally asked how student/teacher credibility is perceived in the classroom. Through my data I have found that credibility is perceived through appearance, time management, trustworthiness, competence, responsiveness, and caring. Based on my interviews, I have found that experience, responsibility, organization, and honesty are also significant factors.