Instructor Credibility Across Disciplines

Abstract

Business communication instructors can face a unique set of challenges to maintain their credibility with students. Communication plays an important role in the instructor-student relationship, and students judge instructors’ ability to teach communication based on their ability to practice what they teach. The authors’ empirical study shows that students have higher expectations of their business communication instructors than they do of their other business instructors when it comes to their communication behaviors in and out of the classroom. The authors infer from the data that sensitivity to these expectations can improve student learning and instructor evaluations.