As an instructional consultant, I am frequently called upon to help professors who say, "My course evaluations are low and I just don't know why!" What is perplexing in these particular situations is that many of these teachers appear to meet the traditional criteria for being a "good" teacher. That is, these individuals are well prepared, are very organized, and care about the quality of student learning. Where, then, have they "gone wrong?" What have they done - or not done - that has influenced students' reactions to their teaching in a seemingly negative way?
 

Pinpointing a reason for "why" students have given teachers low scores on course evaluations can be quite an illusive task. In my search to try to provide answers for these particular teachers, I found a terrific source of help from communication research on "speaker or source credibility." This body of research suggests that in order for the audience to have confidence in the speaker, they (the audience) must first deem that individual to be "credible." The concepts presented in this research serve quite well when analyzing classroom situations. That is, teachers are "sources" of information/ideas and students are "members of the audience." As audience members (in any given classroom) students are continuously in the process of evaluating the "worth" of their teacher. In fact, one researcher has argued that a teacher's worth or "credibility" is on the line every time he or she steps in front of a class (Cooper 1995).

The purpose of this paper is to (a) present the concept of teacher credibility and (b) show how this concept can help teachers and instructional consultants identify and solve otherwise elusive problems in teacher/student relationships.
 
 

A Model of Teacher Credibility

In order to better understand the concept of credibility, one must first become acquainted with its various dimensions. Historically, the factors that constitute credibility have been: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism (Berlo, Lemert, & Mertz, 1969), as illustrated in Figure 1. The basic idea of teacher credibility has continued to be a viable concept since then, and has even been applied to the field of leadership (Cooper and Simonds, 1998; Kouzes and Posner, 1993).

According to this concept, the teacher who is perceived by students to be competent, trustworthy, and dynamic is more likely to be deemed "credible" and, as a result, students are more likely to respond positively to the teacher. One must also take into account the fact that each of the dimensions is independent. That is, one may be perceived to be a teacher who is quite competent but not trustworthy; or dynamic but lacking in knowledge of the subject matter.
 
 

The general characteristics of each of these dimensions, are described below:

Competence is the perceived "expertness" of the speaker, i.e., their knowledge of the subject matter. Competence also involves teaching the course in a way that will truly be of value to the student. Descriptive adjectives include: informed, experienced, skilled, qualified.

Trustworthiness refers to whether or not the teacher has the best interest of the student at heart. A teacher who is trustworthy is one who promotes positive teacher/student relationships. For example, students are made to feel welcome as participants in the class, the teacher sincerely cares about the welfare of the students, and the teacher is sensitive to gender and cultural issues in the classroom. Descriptive adjectives include: safe, just, kind, friendly, honest

Dynamism focuses on the teacher's "passion" for teaching and his/her enthusiasm in the classroom. It also involves the presentation skills of the speaker. That is, a dynamic teacher is one who is more likely to be confident, articulate, and animated. He or she is one who "changes the pace" in a single class by using a variety of teaching strategies. Descriptive adjectives include: emphatic, bold, active, energetic.

Teaching Behaviors that Generate "Credibility"

To illustrate how this model can help both teachers and instructional consultants, I offer an experience I had with two groups of faculty members on our campus.

At our university we have biweekly discussion groups for faculty who want to improve their teaching. On two separate occasions the task for these groups was to examine questions and concerns they had about relating more positively with their students. After reviewing the kinds of problems they had been encountering, I presented the model of teacher credibility and commented briefly on each of the three dimensions.

Following my comments, I asked members of each group to brainstorm what a teacher would have to do to convince his or her students that they (as teachers) were competent, trustworthy, and dynamic. The group members created an impressive list of answers that are shown in part in Figure 2.

This exercise turned out to be a very powerful learning experience for these teachers for the following two reasons. First, because the faculty members themselves generated the list of behaviors, the individual items had a significant meaning to them. Second, each of the members of the group learned that the three dimensions of teacher credibility are based on learnable teaching behaviors. Consequently they were able to take the ideas and use them in their own classrooms. Several did so and reported that student attitudes did change for the better. Later many of the teachers were delighted to discover that their end-of-semester course evaluations also significantly improved!
 

Several of these teachers had been experiencing problems in their relationship with students and were able to make effective changes by focusing on the model of teacher credibility. This experience suggests that the model can be quite helpful in providing new insights into one's own teaching.
 
 

Assessing One's Own Credibility as a Teacher

The first step in assessing one's own credibility as a teacher is an awareness and understanding of the three factors that affect student perceptions. The second step is discovering how students actually perceive you in terms of each of the three dimensions.

When assessing credibility, the teacher must be prepared for the disconcerting possibility that students' perceptions of their teaching may vary widely from their own perception (of their teaching). For example, a teacher may believe that his teaching is commendable and his structure of class time is outstanding, while his students are perceiving his performance in the class and his organization of class time to be somewhat less than stellar. Discovering this sort of discrepancy in perceptions is one of the benefits of using the model to assess one's own credibility as a teacher.

In order to determine how students perceive one's credibility, the teacher must first gather information from his or her students and then analyze it in terms of the three dimensions of the Teacher Credibility Model. While instructional consultants are quite familiar with collecting data to evaluate the teaching of another, individual teachers are not typically familiar with such procedures. As a reminder, I offer the following simple recommendations for gathering information:

b. Monitor yourself as you teach, for example:

• pay close attention to any kind of student feedback, both verbal and nonverbal,
• bring an audio cassette player to class and record class proceedings,
• videotape your class.

c. Ask a colleague from your department to observe/evaluate you as you teach.

d. Ask a colleague from outside your department to observe/evaluate you as you teach.

e. Ask one of your students from another class to observe/evaluate you as you teach.

f. Collect data from the students in this class, for example:

• ask for written feedback throughout the semester
• use a standardized course evaluation, or
• create your own evaluation using open-ended questions
• provide a box where students may drop "spur-of-the-moment" comments about class proceedings

g. Personally interview students, either individually or collectively,

h. Ask an outside individual to interview the students.

Examining the Data

In order to analyze the data that have been gathered, the information should be categorized according to the three dimensions of the Teacher Credibility Model. That is, specific teaching behaviors, both positive and negative, should be listed under the dimension that best describes that particular behavior. It is usually fairly easy to see where the data are "clumping." If the teacher has one or more negative behaviors in a single category or even the absence of specific behaviors in a particular category, e.g., trustworthiness, those are the behaviors the teacher should seek to modify and improve.
On some occasions, however, the faculty person may be unable to identify any "offensive" behaviors on his or her own. In these situations, it is advisable to seek out the services of an instructional consultant.
 
 

Seeking the Advice of an Instructional Consultant

Sometimes the cause of negative student perceptions is so subtle that the teacher needs assistance collecting and analyzing data from the students. To illustrate the frustrations a teacher may incur in seeking answers, I offer the following case study. In this particular situation the professor had been diligently searching for reasons as to why students were consistently scoring her below average on end-of-semester evaluations. She had not been able to identify the source of the problem on her own. Therefore, she sought out the assistance of an instructional consultant.
 

Case Study

As previously stated, Professor A had consistently received low scores on her course evaluations and elected to come to our office for advice. She graciously consented to provide me with all of her course materials and invited me into her classroom to observe her teaching.

In my search to discover answers for Professor A, I used the Teacher Credibility Model as a framework for evaluating her teaching. For example, after examining her course syllabus (along with all of her other course materials) and after making multiple observations of her class, I found Professor A to be knowledgeable, prepared, and organized. As a result, I concluded that she was "competent."

According to the Credibility Model, the next dimensions to be examined were trustworthiness and dynamism. In order to have a better means by which to assess these factors, I personally interviewed a large number of students in her class. During the interviews, students indicated they believed the following: (a) the instructor's tests were fair, (b) the assignments, although challenging, were acceptable, and (c) her methods for assigning grades were equitable. These student responses led me to conclude that the instructor "passed" the trustworthiness factor.

The last dimension to be examined was dynamism. As a result of additional questions asked during the student interviews, I discovered that, while students were not "blown away" with the charismatic personality and presentation skills of the teacher, they believed that she was "OK." They reported that while the teacher did not really lecture, they were pleased with the way in which she interacted with them in the classroom, e.g., she was enthusiastic and she used a variety of teaching techniques. As a result of these student responses, it would seem that Professor A had also "passed" the dynamism component of the credibility model.

Apparently Professor A demonstrated competence and trustworthiness and was acceptable on the dynamism dimension. What was missing? At this point there seemed to be no logical explanation for the negative student perceptions. However, after further probing during the student interviews, a pattern began to emerge; the consequences of which were quite surprising. I discovered that students perceived Professor A to be somewhat less than competent. The reason? Students expressed concern that the professor appeared to be unable to answer their questions in class. The primary problem stemmed from the fact that Professor A preferred to write out comprehensive answers to student questions and present them directly to the student(s) at the next class period. She chose this method because she felt uncomfortable trying to compose a good answer "on the spot." Because of this practice, students were led to believe that Professor A did not know the answer. They believed her to be lacking in knowledge of the subject matter, i.e., incompetent and, as a result, they were giving her low marks on the course evaluations.

Voila! We had finally found specific teaching behaviors that were influencing students to have a negative perception of Professor A. It was these negative perceptions that were causing them to give her low evaluations. Once these perceptions were understood, the teacher now knew which of her teaching behaviors she needed to change. In fact, she was able to modify her behavior in subsequent classes and, as a result, scored higher on her next course evaluations.
 
 

Conclusion

Teachers and instructional consultants are often puzzled when students respond negatively to a teacher even when the teacher appears to be well organized, uses active learning techniques, and has students who indicate they are learning.

The Teacher Credibility Model presented here is an excellent device for determining the underlying reasons for "why" students perceive their teachers as they do. By examining each of the various dimensions of credibility, i.e., competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism, the model can help to explain why students develop either positive or negative opinions about their teachers. When student perceptions are understood, teachers can modify their behavior in order to improve those perceptions. While behavior modification can improve one's course evaluations, the more significant long-term benefit is that positive student attitudes result in better student learning.
 
 

References

Berlo, D. K., Lemert, J. B., & Mertz, R. J. (1969). Dimensions for evaluating the acceptability of message sources. Public Opinion Quarterly, 33, 563-76.

Cooper, P. J. (1995). Communication in the classroom. Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick.

Cooper, P.S. and Simonds, C. 1998. Communication for the Classroom Teacher. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Kouzes, J.S. and Posner, B.Z. 1993. Credibility: How Leaders Gain It and Lose It, Why People Demand It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.