Publication Date
2019
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
First Advisor
Henningsen, Mary Lynn
Degree Name
M.A. (Master of Arts)
Legacy Department
Department of Communication
Abstract
Sites like Rate My Professors (RMP) offer abundant, potentially problematic foundations of expectations about instructors in higher education. Framed in Expectancy Violations Theory, this thesis investigated the relationship between online ratings and learning. To conduct an experimental test of EVT in this context, three RMP reviews (i.e., positive, neutral, negative) were created to induce an expectation of instructor clarity. Two lectures were filmed (i.e., clear, unclear) to violate or affirm the expectation students may have formed from the reviews. The results of the experiment indicated that violation of expectations did not influence learning (i.e., quiz score, cognitive learning, or most subscales of affective learning). Instead, there was a consistent effect for the clarity of the video message. Despite the formation of expectations through RMP reviews, the results indicated that expectations did not influence learning as much as actual clarity did. These findings suggest that, although RMP may be abundant, it may also be benign.
Recommended Citation
Simpson II, Dathan Nathaniel, "Rate My Professors: Electronic Word of Mouth and Expectancy Violations Theory in the Classroom" (2019). Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations. 7671.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-thesesdissertations/7671
Extent
55 pages
Language
eng
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.
Media Type
Text
