RELATIONSHIPS OF VISIBLE NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHERS TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS\u27 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TEACHERS\u27 ABILITIES IN CLASSROOM CONTROL

Relationships of visible nonverbal behaviors and characteristics of teachers to high school students\u27 ratings of teachers\u27 abilities at classroom control were examined. In Study 1, 44 college students were videotaped simulating teachers beginning an initial class meeting. High school students rated the videotaped teachers on ability to control a classroom, attractiveness, and age. Videotapes were scored for number of gestures, smiles, and self-adaptors, time looking at class, time walking, arm position, and dress. Teachers were also categorized on gender, race, and type of equipment used to videotape them. A stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that ratings on control were best predicted by gender of teacher (males were rated higher), by having been taped with a studio camera rather than a portable unit (which yielded somewhat less sharp black and white contrast), and by the amount of time the teacher looked at the class (more time looking was predictive of higher ratings). Ten teacher tapes (five males and five females) from the first study were used as stimulus tapes for the second. They were to represent for each gender, the range of ratings from low to high perceived ability to control a class. The second study examined whether ratings on control were related to gender or academic track of student rater, gender of teacher, or order of presentation of teachers. It also examined whether teachers rated low and high in the first study were similarly rated in the second. Raters were 72 males and 72 females, 36 of each gender from each academic track (low/high), rating the ten teachers on control, seeing the tapes in one of four random orders. The analysis indicated that ratings on control were not affected by gender or academic track of student rater; they were affected by gender of teacher (males were rated higher) but at only two ranks; they were affected by order: the mean rating for one of the orders was lower than the means for each of the other three orders, none of which differed from each other. There was a clear tendency for teachers ranked low in the first study to be ranked low in the second, and for those ranked high in the first study to be ranked high in the second; ratings from the first study are to that extent validated