Publication Date

Spring 2018

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Kristin B. Wilson (Director), Kimberlee Everson, and Marguerite DeSander

Degree Program

Educational Leadership Doctoral Program

Degree Type

Doctor of Education

Abstract

The present study explored relationships between two larger streams of research—faculty-student interactions and destructive leadership embodied in faculty incivility towards students. While interactions with faculty outside of class offer tremendous benefits for students’ intellectual and socio-emotional development, avoidance is one of the demonstrated outcomes of destructive leadership on followers and of faculty incivility on students. The theoretical basis for this study was the premise that faculty incivility displayed in class, as perceived by students, could predict the frequency and type of interactions in which students engage with professors outside of the classroom. To test this conjecture, a sample of 785 students at WKU was surveyed. A total of 137 students indicated they had perceived incivility on the part of faculty during class. Overall, the students interacted with professors in an out-of-class setting infrequently, averaging three interactions per semester. Interactions were also reportedly of a short duration averaging approximately 12 minutes. There were no statistically significant differences in frequency by type of interaction. Among those students who indicated they had witnessed or experienced incivility on the part of a professor, the incivility behavior was not a significant predictor of the type of interaction in which students engaged with professors.

Disciplines

Educational Leadership | Higher Education | Teacher Education and Professional Development

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