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The role of teacher communicator style in the delivery of a middle school substance use prevention program
Giles, S. M., Pankratz, M. M., Ringwalt, C., Jackson-Newsom, J., Hansen, W. B., Bishop, D., Dusenbury, L., & Gottfredson, N. (2012). The role of teacher communicator style in the delivery of a middle school substance use prevention program. Journal of Drug Education, 42(4), 393-411. https://doi.org/10.2190/DE.42.4.b
We examine whether teachers' communicator style relates to student engagement, teacher-student relationships, student perceptions of teacher immediacy, as well as observer ratings of delivery skills during the implementation of All Stars, a middle school-based substance use prevention program. Data from 48 teachers who taught All Stars up to 3 consecutive years and their respective seventh-grade students (n = 2,240) indicate that having an authoritative communication style is negatively related to student engagement with the curriculum and the quality of the student-teacher relationship, while having an expressive communicator style improves teachers' immediacy to student needs. Adaptations made by a subsample of teachers (n = 27) reveal that those who were more expressive asked students more questions, used more motivational techniques, and introduced more new concepts than authoritarian teachers.
