No Complain, No Gain: Students' Organizational, Relational, and Personal Reasons for Withholding Rhetorical Dissent from their College Instructors

Dissatisfaction between students and faculty is not uncommon, but the majority of students do not complain to their instructors when they have issues that need addressing. Because complaining to instructors gives them the potential to fix student problems, we conducted this study to determine why students choose not to complain to their instructors when they experience dissatisfaction. We used a qualitative approach to answering this question and asked a sample of 186 participants to report their reasons for withholding rhetorical dissent. Our data indicated that students withheld dissent from their instructors due to organizational factors and, to a lesser extent, relational and personal factors. We discuss these results and identify implications for instructors.