Title

A Measure to Assess Student-Instructor Relationships

Document Type

Article

SoTL Category

Student Considerations; Instructor/Faculty Considerations

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

There is a need for an instrument that assesses student-instructor relationships as many experts speculate that close, non-threatening relationships between students and instructors predict positive achievement orientations, academic progress and success. In this paper, we present reliability and additional validity data concerning the Student-Instructor Relationship Scale, a 36-item inventory we developed that taps student-instructor relationship connectedness and anxiety. In the first study, college students completed this instrument twice over a 3-4 week time period and the instrument subscales possessed good test-retest reliability. In the second study, the subscales of the SIRS were associated with student perceptions of test anxiety in a randomly determined class. As predicted, student-instructor connectedness was negatively associated with test anxiety and student-instructor anxiety was positively associated with this construct. Study implications and suggestions for future research are offered.

Comments

This article was published in International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Vol. 3, Number 2, Article 14. (2009). DOI: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2009.030214

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS