Student Motive for Communicating and Instructor Immediacy: A Matched-Race Institutional Comparison

Abstract

This study explores the notion that mainstream and minority institutions of higher education set different expectations for successful communication in the classroom that are reflected in the cultural majority student population's communication preferences. In this study, African-American students (N = 136) perceived their instructors to be more nonverbally immediate than their Euro-American counterparts (N = 142), regardless of instructor ethnicity. Their motives to communicate with their instructors for functional, excuse-making, and sycophantic reasons were greater than those for Euro-American students. Further, instructor verbal immediacy has a significant impact on African-American students' motives to communicate with their instructors for relational and participation purposes whereas instructor verbal and nonverbal immediacy has a negative impact on Euro-American students' motives to communicate for functional purposes.