Communicative differences between domestic and foreign instructors

The objective of this study was to investigate college students’ perceptions of their foreign and domestic classroom instructors. Two hundred and eleven college students participated in the study. The potential participants were approached and offered extra credit to participate, and all needed to have at least one domestic instructor and one international instructor during the semester of the research study. Participants filled out a series of measures first examining their personal levels of individualism/collectivism and ethnocentrism, followed by a set of questions related to the participants’ perceptions of their international instructor and then about their domestic instructor. To ensure that participants perceptions were consistent, the Generalized Ethnocentrism Measure was given at the beginning of the survey and then after the international instructor section and before the domestic instructor section. Results revealed support for findings of previous research, which found that domestic instructors were perceived as more effective than their intercultural counterparts on a variety of variables. In contrast, foreign instructors were considered to produce more communication satisfaction among college students. The specific characteristics of instructors that are likely to account for more effective and satisfying communication are discussed. The results of this study are useful for instructors who would like to be more competent and effective in the college classroom.DOI: 10.18870/hlrc.v4i4.187