Nurturing, responsive relationships between teachers and young children and between children and their peers are critically important predictors of lifelong positive outcomes (Jones et al., 2015; DeLay et al., 2016; Hanish et al., 2016). By prioritizing strategies that promote and sustain these types of relationships with and between children,…

Although behavior-specific praise (BSP) is a recommended practice for early childhood populations, early childhood educators often deliver variable rates of BSP. To support educators, face-to-face, school-based consultation may be provided; however, this may not always be feasible. To address this, emerging research is beginning to investigate the…

First-generation (FG) college students (i.e., those for whom neither parent/guardian obtained a bachelor's degree) experience more barriers in college, compared with continuing-generation students. These barriers are compounded by subtle messages from instructors that convey the idea that natural talent is necessary for success in scientific…

Out-of-class communication between teachers and students is essential throughout university engineering courses for in-depth explanations of the concepts covered in class. This study evaluates this aspect throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, a survey that addressed this issue was administered to students at the beginning (March 2020) and at the…

Purpose: The increasing number of online courses in higher education has provided students with convenience and flexibility. However, some adverse effects also come with online learning, including negatively affecting student beliefs in themselves and their perceptions of the instructor. Both are important factors for academic success. Grounded in…

Instructors and students communicate via email in both online-only and traditional college coursework. Few institutions have guidelines regarding instructor-to-student or student-to-instructor response norms. This article discusses findings from a study investigating undergraduate student instructor email response expectations and perceived…

We estimate how much the average grade of students enrolled in introductory macroeconomics changes when the professor sends a reminder email. We utilize observational data to implement a difference-in-differences strategy and identify the plausibly causal effect of email nudges on the student's grade. The professor's reminder email boosts…

Institutions of higher education grapple with low retention rates, including community colleges, which have even lower rates. Historically, retention barriers include financial reasons, transportation issues, or lack of motivation. However, investigating the institution's role is also important. Institutional barriers come in the form of…

Teaching with empathy is an approach that values the emotional quality of both teacher and student experiences. To incorporate teacher empathy into our teaching practice, we must first recognize that distress is inevitable, and that building skills to deal with stressful situations is an important investment in our future mental health.…

To explore email request patterns in the institutional context of university settings, this study combines speech act research with conversation analysis methods to examine how native speakers of American English and native speakers of Chinese formulate email requests to faculty. 100 authentic email requests sent by Chinese and American students…

The purpose of learning analytics is to improve and optimize learning using student data (Siemens, 2013). An early alert warning is learning analytics designed to promote student success (Baneres et al., 2019; Foung, 2019; Lawson et al., 2016; Villano et al., 2018). An early alert has an intervention component that includes, at minimum, an email…

Decades of research has shown that teachers' classroom management practices are critical for students' performance in class. Despite the development, evaluation, and dissemination of classroom management practices, teachers struggle to implement these practices and need implementation supports. To address this issue, there has been a growth of…

This project explores the impacts of emojis on students' impressions when used in a course welcome email. We adopt a 4 x 3 factorial design to determine how different emojis (i.e., [winking face emoji], [face-with-tears-of-joy emoji], [tongue-sticking-out face emoji]) impact students' impressions of credibility, immediacy, and liking. Data from…

Language is a tool for communication. People use it when they converse with each other. One way to comprehend what is being said is based on understating the intended meanings of the conversation, or what is called the underlined meanings (pragmatics). Pragmatic studies how different meanings are conveyed, depending on the utterances provided. A…

This experimental study tested whether a professor's form of address (FOA) and email signature influenced students' perceptions of the professor's credibility, approachability, and likability. Guided by communication accommodation theory, the study investigated the likelihood that students would reciprocate a professor's FOA in email…