Academic Locus of Control as an Individual Factor Influencing Student Dissent

Recently, instructional scholars have identified instructional dissent as a student’s expression of disagreement with a classroom policy or procedure (Goodboy, 2011a Goodboy , A. K. ( 2011a ). The development and validation of the Instructional Dissent Scale . Communication Education , 60 , 422 – 440 . doi: 10.1080/03634523.2011.569894 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 20011b; Horan, Chory, & Goodboy, 2010 Horan , S. , Chory , R. M. , & Goodboy , A. K. ( 2010 ). Understanding students’ classroom justice experiences and responses . Communication Education , 59 , 473 – 494 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). To that end, this project uses Kassing's (1997 Kassing , J. W. ( 1997 ). Articulating, antagonizing, and displacing: A model of employee dissent . Communication Studies , 48 , 311 – 332 . doi: 10.1080/10510979709368510 [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 1998 Kassing , J. W. ( 1998 ). Development and validation of the Organizational Dissent Scale . Management Communication Quarterly , 12 , 183 – 229 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) model of organizational dissent to explore the relationship between academic locus of control (i.e., an individual factor) and instructional dissent. Participants included 380 undergraduate students. Results indicated that students who perceive a greater locus of control over their learning environment (i.e., high academic locus of control) are somewhat more likely to express vengeful dissent (i.e., seek revenge or retaliation on their teacher). Further research investigating relational and organizational factors is needed.