{"id":45377,"date":"2018-09-21T13:34:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T20:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=45377"},"modified":"2018-09-21T13:34:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T20:34:40","slug":"i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/","title":{"rendered":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nDuring a recent lecture, I purposefully antagonized students.<\/p>\n

I belittled one student by criticizing him in front of others. I favored another student by telling other students they should be more like her. I responded impatiently to questions. I told one student his contribution to class was incompetent.<\/p>\n

Yes, I felt like a jerk by doing this. But don\u2019t worry, this was not a real college class. Fortunately, this was a video lecture. The \u201cstudents\u201d I antagonized in the video were actually actors. No students\u2019 grades were harmed and no feelings were hurt.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n

As a communication studies professor who\u00a0researches effective teaching<\/a>, my colleagues and I\u00a0purposefully antagonized<\/a>\u00a0the students in the video lecture to see how it affected other students\u2019 ability to learn. Our acts were meant to be what is known as\u00a0\u201cinstructor misbehavior<\/a>.\u201d We had student participants attend this prerecorded video lecture, then share their thoughts and take a test on the lecture material. We wanted to determine if being hostile to students caused them to learn less.<\/p>\n

Levels of misbehavior<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Not every bad thing that an instructor does is as bad as the ones I did for our study. Some are relatively minor, such as showing up a few minutes late to office hours. These types of things may detract from a learning environment, but students can recover easily from a few simple mistakes or inconveniences caused by a professor.<\/p>\n

But some types of serious misbehavior can hurt the learning environment.\u00a0These include<\/a>taking four weeks to return graded assignments, not responding to student emails, deviating substantially from a syllabus or showing up ill-prepared.<\/p>\n

The worst thing an instructor can do, from my perspective, is antagonize their students. It may be\u00a0rare<\/a>, but students regularly identify antagonism as the most\u00a0significant misbehavior<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what happened to those \u201cstudents\u201d who had the misfortune of having me as their antagonistic professor?<\/p>\n

Impact on grades<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In our\u00a0experiment<\/a>, college students were randomly assigned to one lecture taught by me without antagonism or the same lecture taught with antagonizing remarks. We found that students disliked the course content more in the lecture where I was antagonistic. Those students also scored between 3 and 5 percent lower on a quiz of the material.<\/p>\n

One of the most surprising findings is that the \u201cbest\u201d students\u2019 learning was compromised the most. Those who\u00a0most valued their learning opportunities<\/a>\u00a0and who\u00a0worked the hardest in the face of distraction<\/a>\u00a0lost an average of 5 percent on the quiz.<\/p>\n

Mindful communication<\/strong><\/h4>\n

College professors have choices about how they communicate with students in the classroom, even if they subscribe to a \u201ctell-it-like-it-is\u201d philosophy. It\u2019s not just about the quality of the content. It\u2019s also about how that content is communicated. Students deserve to be taught in optimal learning environments, and for that to happen, professors need to lay off the antagonism. When they don\u2019t, it could drag down the entire class.<\/p>\n

Author Bio: <\/strong>Alan Goodboy is a Professor at West Virginia University<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a recent lecture, I purposefully antagonized students. I belittled one student by criticizing him in front of others. I favored another student by telling other students they should be more like her. I responded impatiently to questions. I told one student his contribution to class was incompetent. Yes, I felt like a jerk by […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":45378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[224425],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-45377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-instructor-misbehavior"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nI acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During a recent lecture, I purposefully antagonized students. I belittled one student by criticizing him in front of others. I favored another student by telling other students they should be more like her. I responded impatiently to questions. I told one student his contribution to class was incompetent. Yes, I felt like a jerk by […]\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"363\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"headline\":\"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":515,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/Teacher-Rant.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"instructor misbehavior\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Higher Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/\",\"name\":\"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/Teacher-Rant.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/Teacher-Rant.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/Teacher-Rant.jpg\",\"width\":680,\"height\":363},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/\",\"name\":\"World leading higher education information and services\",\"description\":\"Global Higher Education Jobs, University jobs, Lecturer & tenure jobs.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\",\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g8ba4c352a279c450aa9435d770c1ebf4\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kevin\"},\"description\":\"Kevin is founder of the world.edu project. The past 28 years have been involved in publishing to the education sector in print and the internet. Kevin has a degree in Education and has a many years experience in developing companies and projects.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/author\\\/kevin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services","og_description":"During a recent lecture, I purposefully antagonized students. I belittled one student by criticizing him in front of others. I favored another student by telling other students they should be more like her. I responded impatiently to questions. I told one student his contribution to class was incompetent. Yes, I felt like a jerk by […]","og_url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/","og_site_name":"World leading higher education information and services","article_published_time":"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":680,"height":363,"url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Kevin","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kevin","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/"},"author":{"name":"Kevin","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee"},"headline":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point","datePublished":"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/"},"wordCount":515,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg","keywords":["instructor misbehavior"],"articleSection":["Higher Education"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/","name":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point - World leading higher education information and services","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg","datePublished":"2018-09-21T20:34:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Teacher-Rant.jpg","width":680,"height":363},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/i-acted-like-a-complete-jerk-to-my-students-just-to-prove-a-point\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/world.edu\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I acted like a complete jerk to my students just to prove a point"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/","name":"World leading higher education information and services","description":"Global Higher Education Jobs, University jobs, Lecturer & tenure jobs.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee","name":"Kevin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g8ba4c352a279c450aa9435d770c1ebf4","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kevin"},"description":"Kevin is founder of the world.edu project. The past 28 years have been involved in publishing to the education sector in print and the internet. Kevin has a degree in Education and has a many years experience in developing companies and projects.","sameAs":["https:\/\/world.edu"],"url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/author\/kevin\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45377"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}