Verbal immediacy and androgyny: an examination of student perceptions of college instructors. (The scholarship of teaching and learning).

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated that instructors can be taught to use verbally immediate behaviors in the classroom. It has been speculated that verbal immediacy may be composed of a combination of assertiveness and warmth. Such a blend is analogous to the trait of androgyny. The current study finds a strong association between instructor verbal immediacy and instructor androgyny. It is concluded that training teachers to be verbally immediate is justified.

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Verbal immediacy has and continues to receive a good deal of attention in instructional communication literature (Christensen & Menzel, 1998; Jensen 2000). Previous studies have linked instructor verbal immediate communication with such beneficial outcomes as student motivation (Frymier, 1994), student learning (Frymier & Shulman, 1995), decreased communication apprehension (Ellis, 1995), and willingness to talk (Menzel & Carrell, 1999). However, little is known about the related behavioral tendencies of more and less verbally immediate instructors. Previous research (Jordan, McGreal, & Wheeless, 1990) has speculated that verbal immediacy may be comprised of a blend of warmth and assertiveness. This blend is often the result of perceptions about communicative behaviors that individuals hold. Moreover, such a blend is closely associated with the concept of androgyny (Bem, 1974), which refers to the psychological gender make-up of large quantities of both feminine (responsive) and masculine (assertive) personality traits. The current project seeks to investigate the relationship between student perceptions of instructor verbal immediate communication and student perceptions of instructor androgyny.

Bem's (1974) notion of androgyny refers to the psychological gender make-up of large quantities of both feminine and masculine personality traits. Androgyny is based on the notion that individuals can co-mingle feminine and masculine identities (Bem, 1974), by constructing cognitive schema without the masculine-feminine dichotomy (McMahan & Stacks, 1984). Bem (1984) identifies three basic assumptions of androgyny. First, androgynous individuals are more flexible in their behavioral tactics than are masculine or feminine individuals. Second, this behavioral flexibility allows androgynous individuals to function well in a host of social settings. Third, both females and males can be androgynous.

Waterman and Whitbourne (1982) found that androgyny has a strong positive relationship with psychological development. The researchers found that highly androgynous people are best able to develop mentally and work through problems. Androgynous individuals appeared to be more psychologically adjusted than were individuals who behaved in exclusively or predominantly masculine or feminine ways (Jackson, 1983). In addition, androgyny has been closely linked with self-esteem (Lamke, 1982), social adjustment (Major, Carnevale, & Deaux, 1981), social support (Berthiaume, David, Saucier, & Borgeat, 1996) and leadership ability (Kolb, 1997).

The trait of androgyny and the behavioral flexibility it entails produce many beneficial social and psychological outcomes for those who possess it. Presumably, this trait would be associated with perceptions of effective communication behavior. Indeed, Reiser and Troost (1986), Wheeless (1984), and Wheeless and Duran (1982) illustrated that androgynous people demonstrate higher levels of communication competence than do those who are not androgynous. Androgynous individuals have lower communication apprehension (Greenblatt, Hasenauer, & Freimuth, 1980) and less shyness (McCroskey, Simpson, & Richmond, 1982) than do non-androgynous individuals. These findings are consistent with the notion that androgynous individuals have many communicative options from which to choose. This ability to "blend traditionally masculine and feminine qualities when necessary in interpersonal situations maximizes interpersonal effectiveness" (Stewart, Cooper, Stewart, & Friedley, 1996, p. 35).

Another facet of effective communication is the immediacy construct. Mehrabian (1967) proposed a conceptualization of immediacy as "the degree of directness and intensity of interaction between a communicator and the object of communication" (p. 414). Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) found that nonverbal immediacy was highly associated with both the assertive and responsive socio-communicative styles (two constructs which mirror the masculine and feminine genders). Verbal immediacy can be defined as the use of verbal communication that enhances physical and psychological closeness (Gorham, 1988; Gorham & Christophel, 1990). In the teaching context, verbal immediacy encompasses behaviors such as humor, praising student's actions, work, or comments, demonstrating willingness to become involved in a conversation with students, self-disclosing, asking questions that solicit opinions, following up on student initiated topics of discussion, and meeting with students outside of class (Gorham, 1988).

The perception of instructor verbal immediacy has been linked to a number of important outcomes in the classroom. Several studies establish a positive correlation between verbal immediacy and student motivation (Christensen & Menzel, 1998; Christophel & Gorham, 1995; Frymier, 1994). Furthermore, considerable research has found positive relationships between perceived instructor verbal immediacy and cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning on the part of students (Frymier & Shulman, 1995; Menzel &. Carrell, 1999). Menzel and Carrel (1999) examined the relationship between verbal immediacy, sex, and student willingness to talk. Neither the biological sex of the teacher nor the biological sex of the student impacted the student's willingness to talk in the classroom. However, students were more willing to talk to verbally immediate instructors than to less immediate instructors. In addition, Ellis (1995) found that instructor verbal immediacy was inversely related to student communication apprehension. All of the above studies related to verbal immediacy examine the student perceptions of verbal immediacy instead of the actual behavior of verbal immediate communicative behaviors. Many of these authors argue that student perceptions of verbal immediacy are often just as valuable than the "counting" of actual behaviors because the students are reporting that they feel immediate with their instructors, which in turn achieves real classroom outcomes like learning, etc.

Previous research has uncovered seemingly contradictory results concerning the relationship between verbal immediacy and biological sex (Menzel & Carrell, 1999). Greenblatt, Hausenaeur, and Freimuth. (1980) postulate that "psychological sex-type conceptualization and measurement techniques are especially useful in areas where previous research has revealed inconsistent or contradictory results. The inconsistencies and contradictions may very well be due to the psychological sex-type compositions within the males and females of a particular sample" (p. 127). While there is theoretical rationale for expecting a relationship between androgyny and verbal immediacy, there is no rationale for expecting a difference between the sexes in terms of verbal immediacy. The current study explores the nature of the relationships between sex, androgyny and verbal immediacy by testing the following three hypotheses:

H1: There is no difference between student perceptions of male and female instructors in terms of verbal immediacy.

H2: There is a positive relationship between student perceptions of instructor verbal immediacy and student perceptions of instructor androgyny.

H3: There is no difference between student perceptions of male and female instructors in terms of androgyny.

Method

Participants

The sample consisted of 300 participants (122 males and 178 females) enrolled in a large southwestern university. Participant's ages ranged from 18 to 47 (M = 22.36, SD = 5.24). Participants received a research credit for use in an introductory communication course in return for taking part in the study. Participants answered questions based upon the instructor they had in the class previous to the one in which they completed the questionnaire. This technique produces reports on a wide variety of instructors from a host of academic disciplines. In total, 196 participants rated male instructors and 104 participants rated female instructors. In order to encourage honest student response and ensure anonymity, the names of individual instructors were not collected. The procedure has been effectively used in prior studies (Plax, Kearney, McCroskey, & Richmond, 1986; Thomas, Richmond, & McCroskey, 1994).

Procedures

The surveys were administered during the fourth week of a six-week summer session. This time-frame was chosen because it allowed students to have formed clear and stable perceptions of the their instructors (Gorham, 1988). Each survey included the following measures: Gorham's (1988) Verbal Immediacy Behavior scale (VIB), Wheeless and Dierks-Stewart's (1981) modification of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (RBSRI), and a brief demographic questionnaire. To neutralize possible order effects, half of the sample completed the VIB followed by the RBSRI, while the other half completed the RBSRI followed by the VIB.

Instruments

Gorham's (1988) VIB scale was designed to assess instructor verbal immediacy. Participants were asked to indicate the frequency their instructor performed each of 17 verbal immediacy behaviors (e.g., "Uses personal examples or talks about experiences s/he has had outside the class") on 5-point Likert-type scales (1 = never, 5 = very often). (The use of student's reports of teacher behaviors has been demonstrated to be a valid method of obtaining data about teacher behavior. Anderson (1978) reported high levels of congruency between student reports of instructor behavior and the reports of trained observers). Previous internal reliability of the VIB scale has ranged from .87 to .94 (Frymier & Shulman, 1995; Gorham, 1988). Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the current study was .88 (M = 60.81, SD = 13.13).

Wheeless and Dierks-Stewart's (1981) RBSRI includes several modifications of Bem's (1974) Bem Sex-Role Inventory. The original BSRI (1974) is a 60-item Likert-type self-report measure of gender-role orientation, comprised of 20 masculine (traits rated as more socially appropriate for males than females), 20 feminine (traits rated as more socially appropriate for females than males), and 20 neutral (traits rated as socially appropriate for both males and females) items. Wheeless and Dierks-Stewart (1981) and others (e.g., Waters, Waters, & Pincus, 1977; Pedhazur & Tetenbaum, 1979) demonstrated that Bem's (1974) conceived masculine, feminine, and neutral dimensions did not replicate with the originally specified twenty scale items. The RBSRI has a stable factor structure including 20 items comprising the two dimensions of masculine (10 items; e.g., "assertive") and feminine (10 items; e.g., "tender"). The BSRI uses median splits to categorize individuals as one of four gender types (feminine, masculine, androgynous, or undifferentiated). In converting interval level data to a nominal level, the BSRI loses statistical precision. The RBSRI increases statistical precision by using a formula [2 (sum of masculine scores + sum of feminine scores) + (sum of feminine scores - sum of masculine scores)] to preserve continuous data and yield an androgyny score for each individual. Scores can range from 40 to 200, with a low score representing lower androgyny and a high score representing higher androgyny.

Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which each item described their instructors on 5-point Likert-type scales (1 = never or almost never true, 5 = always or almost always true). Wheeless and Wheeless (1982) and Wheeless and Portori (1989) provide validation of the use of the RBSRI as a measure of perception. Previous research has shown this scale to be reliable. Jordan et al. (1990) report internal reliabilities of .95 for femininity and .91 for masculinity. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients for the feminine and masculine sub-scales were .94 (M = 37.133, SD = 8.91) and .87 (M = 37.55, SD = 7.16), respectively. The mean and standard deviation for the continuous androgyny scores were 148.95 and 29.66, respectively.

Results

Hypothesis one predicted no difference between male and female instructors in terms of student ratings of the frequency of their verbal immediacy behaviors. An independent samples t-test showed no significant difference between student ratings of the verbal immediacy levels of male instructors (M = 59.81, SD = 13.56) and female instructors (M = 62.68, SD = 12.14), t (298) = 1.81, p = .071.

Hypothesis two predicted a positive relationship between perceived instructor verbal immediacy and perceived instructor androgyny. A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient revealed a strong positive relationship (r = .73, p = .000) between student ratings of instructor androgyny and student ratings of the frequency of instructor verbal immediacy behaviors. Student perceptions of instructor androgyny accounted for 53% of the variance in student ratings of instructor verbal immediacy.

Hypothesis three predicted no difference between student perceptions of the androgyny levels of male and female instructors. However, an independent samples t-test showed a significant difference between student ratings of the androgyny levels of male instructors (M = 145.56, SD = 29.41) and student ratings of the androgyny levels of female instructors (M = 155.35, SD = 29.21), t (298) = 2.749, p = .006.

Discussion

In general, this study revealed that student perceptions of instructors rated as highly androgynous were also perceived as highly verbally immediate. This finding confirms the notion individuals with many traits (both feminine and masculine) in their behavioral repertoires are more likely to engage in verbally immediate behavior than are individuals who do not possess such a blend of feminine and masculine traits. Presumably, the overarching personality trait of psychological androgyny is manifesting itself through the communication construct of verbal immediacy, at least when examining the perceptions of the students. Student perceptions seem to be the most important variable when examining the college classroom because, ultimately, students evaluate instructions and rate their own levels of learning and motivation in the classroom. Essentially, if the students think that the instructor was ineffective at their communicative abilities, at least for that student the instructor was. Future research should explore the relationships between student perceptions and actual observed behaviors to see if we as instructors and researchers can place stock simply on student perceptions.

Sex, on the other hand, does not make a statistically significant difference in terms of student perceptions of instructor verbal immediacy. In this way, the current study provides further support for the notion that sex differences in human communication are negligible, especially in comparison to learned predispositions like androgyny.

Although results indicated that female instructors were rated as significantly more androgynous than were male instructors, it is important to note that instructor sex accounted for a mere 3% of the variance in student ratings of instructor androgyny. This finding is consistent with Bem's (1974) assertion that both males and females can be androgynous and the theoretical position that androgyny is cultural, as opposed to biological.

In lieu of recent initiatives to teach instructors to be more verbally immediate (e. g., Jensen, 2000), the results of this study provide further theoretical justification for training in-service and pre-service instructors to engage in more verbally immediate behaviors. Namely, this study suggests that the perception of verbal immediacy is comprised of a blend of both warm and assertive behaviors (as perceived by students), which produce a myriad of benefits for both students and instructors.

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Chad C. Edwards, University of Kansas Autumn P. Edwards, University of Kansas

Chad is the Assistant Director of the Basic Communication course and a doctoral candidate. Autumn is a teaching assistant and doctoral student. This paper was presented at the 50th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. Acapulco, Mexico.