european journal of social sciences issn: 1450-2267 - EuroJournals

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European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 5, Number 3 (2007) Procedure Questionnaires were distributed to the London-based students in the spring of 2004. Two researchers attended lecture sessions to disseminate and collect the questionnaires, and to respond to questions about the research. Questionnaires were distributed in two ways with the Chinese students. First, an electronic copy of the questionnaire was sent to each of the locally run GC administrative offices (e.g., Shenzhen, Hong Kong). Other Chinese participants were attending a course in London beginning in late spring of 2004. Two researchers attended one of their first meetings to disseminate and collect the questionnaires, as well as answer questions. Completion of the questionnaires took from 15 to 30 minutes. The students were asked about perceptions of their teacher who they had in the module in which the data were collected. Each student reported on one lecturer’s behaviours. The study received approval from the university psychology ethics review committee. Permission was also obtained from the questionnaire authors to use the instrument in the current study. Hypotheses The study models earlier work comparing communication patterns at the secondary school level in Australia and Taiwan (She & Fisher, 2002; She & Fisher, 2000). It uses a similar framework to determine student perceptions of communication at the university level. This model was copied because the researchers felt that the work of She and Fisher (2000, 2002) well exemplifies what is currently being investigated. This research was designed to examine module outcome, culture and gender differences based on perceived communication patterns. The closest study done previously to this was She and Fisher’s. Several hypotheses were developed. 1) Hypothesis one is that there is a positive relationship between student perceptions of teacher communication patterns and module outcome (final class grade). That is, the larger the degree to which students believe teachers interact with the students, the higher the module outcome is for the particular student. 2) Hypothesis two is exploratory. It is expected that there will be cultural differences with the Chinese and UK students reporting different degrees of understanding/friendly, encouragement/praise, non-verbal, challenging and controlling behaviours from their teachers. However, no predictions are being made with respect to Chinese vs. UK-based student’s ratings. 3) Hypothesis three is that female students will report greater levels of all types of behaviour from their teachers than will male students. Results A multiple regression and follow-up paired analyses provided some support for hypothesis 1. Correlational analysis would not provide answers to the questions of causation (Scaife, 2004), therefore multiple regression was used for the analyses. It was believed that there would be a significant relationship between grades and the five communication factors which there was, (F (1,96) = 3.01, p < .05). However, only two of the five communication factors were significant in the post-hoc tests, challenging (F (1,96) = 2.48, p
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 5, Number 3 (2007) Table 1: Munication behaviour means and standard deviations Variable N Mean SD Challenging 113 3.73 .72 Encouragement/Praise 112 3.46 .80 Non-verbal 113 3.56 .73 Understanding/Friendly 113 4.11 .69 Controlling 112 3.14 .81 Hypothesis 2 was developed in an attempt to analyse the cultural differences among this sample. A multivariate analysis of variance for hypothesis 2 was conducted due to the type of data collected (Bray & Maxwell, 1982). The MANOVA was significant, Wilks’ Lambda (F = 1.48, p < .001). Post-hoc tests indicated significance for culture on two of the communication variables: challenging (F = 2.55, p < .05) and encouragement and praise (F = 3.18, p < .01). The mean for the encouragement/praise variable was 3.74 (SD= .61) for the Chinese and 2.22 (SD = .91) for the London sample. For challenging behaviour for the Chinese (mean = 3.56, SD = .87) and for the London group (mean = 2.31, SD = .77), partially supporting the hypothesis that there would be differences between the groups. The Chinese perceived greater levels of both encouragement/praise and challenging behaviour from their lecturers. Support for hypothesis 3 was determined by the same multiple analysis of variance as for hypothesis 2. There was a significant difference in gender with respect to the five communication factors (F (1,112) = 914.04, p
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