The impact of perceived teacher confirmation on receiver apprehension, motivation, and learning

This article reports two studies on teacher confirmation. The first examined (1) students' feelings of confirmation or disconfirmation as a function of perceived teacher behaviors, and (2) whether teacher confirmation behaviors occur in hierarchically arranged clusters. Sixty-one percent of the variance in students' feelings of confirmation was attributable to perceived teacher confirmation behavior. A discernible hierarchy of confirmation behaviors failed to emerge. The second study focused on how teacher confirmation operates in instruction to influence students' receiver apprehension and, ultimately, their motivation, affective learning, and cognitive learning. Half of the variance in students' receiver apprehension was attributable to teacher confirmation. A learning model comprised of teacher confirmation, receiver apprehension, motivation, affective learning, and cognitive learning was tested. Structural equation modeling revealed that teacher confirmation directly influenced receiver apprehension. The influence of teacher confirmation on motivation, affective learning, and cognitive learning was indirect, mediated through receiver apprehension.