Abstract
<p><em>With the</em><em> </em><em>growing shift from lecture-style teaching methods to interactive and experiential group exercises, instructors need to know more about their students, such as</em><em> </em><em>their desired impressions, to adequately engage and support students’ social</em><em> </em><em>interactions. This study addresses this need by</em><em> </em><em>providing an overall understanding of the types of images that are important for students to project when interacting with others in a classroom. After a concise review of impression management literature and grounding our reasoning in cybernetic theory </em><em>(Bozeman &amp; Kacmar, 1997) </em><em>this study offers an insight of the positive impressions students desire to project in front of their peers and professors and the negative impressions students aim to avoid. With</em><em> </em><em>a two-part</em><em> </em><em>survey based on 269 responses, we measured students’ ranking of specific images</em><em> </em><em>and the effort level they exerted towards achieving or avoiding them. We offer suggestions of how these findings can be integrated into teaching for improved student learning and experiences. </em><em></em></p>
Highlights
Impression management, which was anchored in self-presentation by Goffman (1973), involves a process of creating, maintaining or avoiding a desired image (Rosenfeld et al, 1995; Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997)
The first survey was conducted as a test pilot followed by a final survey, which details are described below. 3.1 Test Pilot Design To identify what impressions are important for students, we first used an open-ended questionnaire pilot administered to 30 undergraduate sophomore students in the Northeast of the United States (U.S.) for extra credit
The results revealed on overall congruence in the average effort levels given to positive impressions and their average rank of desirability
Summary
Impression management, which was anchored in self-presentation by Goffman (1973), involves a process of creating, maintaining or avoiding a desired image (Rosenfeld et al, 1995; Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997). Colleges provide professors with limited information about students’ individual differences such as personality, attitudes, experiences, strengths, values, expectations, learning styles, and goals. Having this information might enable professors to structure more individualized and optimized teaching methods to enhance students’ learning. This paper aims to explore the role of students’ self-presentation motives in learning and the potential effects of impression management effort in face-to-face class interactions. The following research questions were formulated to guide the development of the study: 1) What do we know about self- impressions that students strive to attain in class? The following research questions were formulated to guide the development of the study: 1) What do we know about self- impressions that students strive to attain in class? 2) How do students want to be perceived by their peers and, their professors?
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