Abstract
As with all language, the words of a syllabus carry emotional associations. Previous literature has not objective-ly measured the emotional associations of syllabus language or explored the relationship between instructors’ teaching style and the emotional associations of syllabus language. Using the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) framework, this article reports baseline measurements for syllabus language, investigates the relationship be-tween Grasha’s teaching styles and instructors’ self-perceived emotional associations with teaching, and compares instructors’ self-perceptions with the emotional associations of their syllabus language. Moderate correlations between teaching PAD scores and Grasha’s teaching style inventory suggest the emotion that may connect with concrete teaching attitudes and behaviors. Crucially, we find that most instructors’ syllabi are incongruent with their teaching self-perceptions on key emotional dimensions. In other words, instructors’ syllabi are not communicating the central emotional associations of their instructor self-perception. Syllabus language can be altered, however, to align more closely with instructor self-perception.
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Recommended Citation
Richmann, Christopher; Kurinec, Courtney; and Millsap, Matthew
(2020)
"Syllabus Language, Teaching Style, and Instructor Self-Perception: Toward Congruence,"
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning:
Vol. 14:
No.
2, Article 4.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2020.140204
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