Instructional Dissent as a Conservation of Resources for Emotionally Exhausted Students

Abstract

Since its inception, scholars have examined teacher behaviors and student characteristics that contribute to instructional dissent. The model tested in the current study includes student emotional exhaustion, anger, emotion work, and emotional support as contributors to expressive, vengeful, and rhetorical dissent at the end of the semester. Participants were 196 university students who reported on their general levels of emotional exhaustion before completing measures of anger, emotion work, emotional support, and instructional dissent in a specific class. From a conservation of resources theoretical perspective, results indicate that emotionally exhausted students dissent to restore emotional resources or to protect from additional resource drain.