An examination of factors influencing United States student perceptions of native and non-native United States teacher effectiveness.

Abstract

Future research directions for integrating intercultural communication and intracultural communication concerns are discussed. Implications for training non-native U.S. instructors and developing future programs to enable more effective teaching are discussed.

This investigation examines factors influencing U.S. student perceptions of native and non-native U.S. teacher effectiveness. A questionnaire employing measures of ethnocentrism, intercultural communication apprehension, willingness to communicate, and motivation was completed by 204 native U.S. students. Further, students responded to affective, cognitive, and behavioral measures with regard to native and non-native U.S. teacher effectiveness. The results showed that native U.S. students significantly evaluated native U.S. teachers more positively than non-native U.S. teachers. Simple correlations between evaluation scores for the two teacher types (native and non-native U.S.) for each dependent variable (classroom willingness to communicate, classroom motivation, affect for content, affect for instructor, behavioral intent, learning, learning loss, overall effectiveness, and ideal teacher) suggest that students in this study responded very specifically to the different teachers (intracultural or intercultural context) rather than on a general trait basis. The positive associations with the difference scores obtained indicated that more ethnocentric U.S. students tend to evaluate native U.S. teachers more favorably than non-native U.S. teachers. Further, students with higher general levels of motivation toward learning were somewhat more willing to communicate in classes with non-native U.S. teachers and were somewhat more motivated in those classes. Students who had high levels of intercultural communication apprehension rated non-native U.S. teachers more negatively than U.S. teachers.

Drawing from research on uncertainty reduction theory (URT; Berger & Calabrese, 1975), anxiety and uncertainty management theory (AUM; Gudykunst, 1995), and expectancy violation theory (EVT; Burgoon, 1979), the results are discussed in reference to factors which distinguish the native U.S. teacher context (intracultural) and the non-native U.S. teacher context (intercultural). The possible situational differences for student level of anxiety, amount of uncertainty, and valence of expectations are elaborated and provided support by past research in the instructional communication literature on teacher effectiveness (Andersen, 1979a; Norton, 1977; Nussbaum, 1984; Richmond, Gorham, & McCroskey, 1987).

Stepwise regression analyses revealed that up to 10 percent of the variability in differences of student perceptions of native U.S. and non-native U.S. teachers could be predicted by student levels of ethnocentrism. Intercultural communication apprehension was found to be wholly redundant with ethnocentrism in all of the models generated. The result of the regression analyses suggest that student bias in the form of ethnocentrism is a factor influencing perceptions of teacher effectiveness. The magnitude of the effects observed in the present study suggest that true differences in teacher effectiveness are most likely the primary causes of the perceived differences between native U.S. and non-native U.S. teacher effectiveness.