Do Professor–Student Rapport and Mattering Predict College Student Outcomes?

Professor–Student Rapport

Meaningful interactions between students and faculty are vital to high-quality learning experiences, and many faculty aim to build rapport with their students (Kuh et al., 2005). Rapport is often described as an immediacy behavior in the classroom, characterized by being available, engaging, and welcoming to students (Wilson & Taylor, 2001). In this way, rapport has been conceptualized as specific behaviors demonstrated by teachers. Wilson et al. (2010) argued that the concept of rapport should be expanded to also include perceptions of teacher qualities more broadly, such as a teacher’s attitude toward students, enthusiasm for teaching, and receptiveness to engaging with students. This conceptualization of rapport is more inclusive of the kinds of qualities students associate with good teachers.

Research has examined student outcomes associated with rapport conceptualized in both ways, as immediacy behaviors demonstrated in the classroom and as ratings of teachers’ qualities more broadly. Positive student outcomes are associated with both concepts of rapport. For example, professor–student rapport is related to positive attitudes toward a course (Benson et al., 2005; Wilson et al., 2010), positive attitudes toward an instructor (Christensen & Menzel, 1998; Wilson et al., 2010; Wilson & Ryan, 2013), increased self-reported learning (Christensen & Menzel, 1998; Wilson & Ryan, 2013), increased attendance (Benson et al., 2005; Wilson & Ryan, 2013), and increased motivation (Wilson & Ryan, 2013). Additionally, rapport is positively correlated to final course grades (Wilson & Ryan, 2013) and remaining enrolled in a class (Legg & Wilson, 2009).

Many of the recent studies that have investigated professor–student rapport have utilized the Professor–Student Rapport Scale (PSRS; Wilson et al., 2010). The PSRS was developed by asking college students to generate information they associated with professor–student rapport. Following a factor analysis of the items generated, Wilson et al. (2010) identified a 34-item measure with one primary factor. Items on the PSRS range from perceptions of professor qualities (e.g., “My professor is understanding”), to perceptions of a specific class (e.g., “I dislike my professor’s class”), and perceptions of specific behaviors (e.g., “My professor encourages questions and comments from students”). The PSRS has been shown to predict student outcomes above and beyond that accounted for by immediacy behaviors alone (Wilson et al., 2010). However, because the PSRS measures several aspects of students’ experiences and opinions related to a professor, it is not clear which qualities and behaviors are most predictive of student outcomes.

A briefer version of the PSRS was developed and provides useful information about the items most strongly associated with student outcomes (Wilson & Ryan, 2013). The PSRS was reduced to 15 items through factor analysis, with two factors labeled Perceptions of Teacher and Student Engagement. Only the 6-item Student Engagement factor was associated with many of the student outcomes described above, including final grades. Wilson and Ryan (2013) suggested that these six items could be used more parsimoniously to predict student outcomes, and they emphasized the potential importance of learning that engaging students in class may be more critical than demonstrating caring and interest in students. Replication of Wilson and Ryan’s (2013) research with the briefer PSRS is important for furthering understanding of the rapport construct. Further examination of the Student Engagement factor and its predictive value is also important for determining how best to improve student outcomes.

Mattering

The concept of mattering, particularly as it relates to students and faculty, is relevant to descriptions of rapport as consisting of faculty interest in and caring about students. Mattering is defined as “the psychological tendency to evaluate the self as significant to specific other people” (Marshall, 2001, p. 474). It is the experience of others being aware of our existence, of feeling important to others, and believing that others depend on us (Rosenberg & McCullough, 1981). Mattering represents our sense of belonging and connectedness to others. Although it is related to self-esteem and social support, studies show that it is also distinct from these constructs (Demir et al., 2011; Elliott et al., 2004). Mattering is negatively related to variables such as depression, negative affect, rumination, and self-criticism and positively related to well-being (Flett et al., 2020; Matera et al., 2019; Rosenberg & McCullough, 1981), and it has been examined in both adolescent and college-aged populations (Dixon et al., 2009; Dixon & Kurpius, 2008; Dixon Rayle & Chung, 2007; Marshall, 2001; Marshall et al., 2010; Tovar et al., 2009).

Several studies have found that mattering is important to the college experience. Schlossberg (1989) first discussed the critical importance of mattering, especially for first-year college students, and argued that students who don’t feel that they matter are marginalized and may feel worthless, resulting in potential academic problems. Dixon Rayle and Chung (2007) found that college students who felt they mattered to their college environment experienced less academic stress, and Tovar et al. (2009) found mattering to be correlated with a sense of belonging in college. Mattering has also been associated with academic self-efficacy (France & Finney, 2010), suggesting that students who feel they matter also have a greater sense of being able to accomplish academic tasks. Finally, mattering exerts an indirect effect on overall college retention, operating through a sense of belonging, engagement, and socio-academic integrative experiences (Tovar, 2013). Despite a wealth of mattering research with college-aged populations, no study has examined the potential impact of mattering on student outcomes in a specific class.

Mattering has been measured in several different ways, including a general sense of mattering (Elliott et al., 2004), mattering to specific individuals (e.g., parents or friends; Marshall, 2001), and mattering to the broader college (Tovar et al., 2009). However, whether mattering to different reference groups is associated with different student outcomes has not been explored. It may be that a general sense of mattering is related to broad socio-emotional outcomes and mattering to specific individuals is related to more focused outcomes in specific situations. Research on college retention suggests ways that mattering might impact student outcomes. For example, several studies have shown that engagement with faculty is often predictive of increased college retention (Kuh et al., 2005; Lillis, 2011), and other research has found that building peer groups during the first year of college leads to increased retention (Buch & Spaulding, 2011; Upcraft et al., 2005). These studies did not measure mattering, per se, but engagement with faculty and building peer groups might suggest a sense of mattering to specific people. Similarly, a sense of mattering to the instructor of a specific class might be related to a number of student success outcomes in that class.

The Present Study

Professor–student rapport and mattering have both been studied in a variety of college contexts, and the two constructs seem to share a focus on perceptions of others as attentive and interested. This study will examine the relation between these variables, and given their conceptual similarity, it is expected that professor–student rapport will be positively associated with mattering to a specific instructor. The relative predictive value of professor–student rapport and mattering to understanding student outcomes will also be explored. This study will replicate and extend previous research on the PSRS by examining the comparative impact of the full PSRS and the brief PSRS on student outcomes. Does the brief version of the PSRS outperform the full PSRS in predicting final grades and students’ perceptions of their instructor? Consistent with research by Wilson and Ryan (2013) and Ryan and Wilson (2014), it is expected that the brief version of the PSRS will better predict student outcomes. Regarding the impact of mattering on student outcomes, it is expected that mattering to the psychology instructor will also be positively associated with student outcomes, but general mattering will not be related to student outcomes. Mattering will be measured in several ways, including a general sense of mattering as well as mattering to specific others in students’ lives, including mattering to faculty. Student outcomes will include student ratings of the instructor and their learning as well as final course grades.

Participants

Participants were 149 college students enrolled in a General Psychology course. Most participants reported their gender as female (79%), and the average age of participants was 19 years (SD = 1.29). Most participants identified their race as either White (48%) or Black/African American (40%), with 9% of participants identifying their race as “other.” Most participants were freshmen (64%) or sophomores (26%). Participants reported their parents’ highest level of education, with 38% reporting a parent having completed high school, 19% reporting a parent having completed some college, and 32% reporting a parent having completed a Bachelor’s degree.

ProfessorStudent Rapport Scale

The PSRS (Wilson et al., 2010) was used to assess participants’ sense of rapport with their current General Psychology instructor. The PSRS measures students’ perceptions of the immediacy behaviors of faculty, including such behaviors as friendliness, nonverbal behaviors, and flexibility. The PSRS also attempts to measure perceptions of faculty qualities, such as kindness, compassion, and receptiveness. Respondents were asked to rate the 34 items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, with higher scores associated with greater rapport. The PSRS demonstrated strong internal consistency (α = 0.94) in this study.

Scores on the brief version of the PSRS were extrapolated from the full version and consist of two factors labeled Perceptions of Teacher and Student Engagement. Perceptions of Teacher is comprised of nine items, and Student Engagement is comprised of six items. Both factors of the brief version demonstrated good internal consistency (Perceptions of Teacher, α = 0.86; Student Engagement, α = 0.82).

General Mattering Index

The General Mattering Index (GMI; Elliott et al., 2004) was used to assess participants’ overall sense of mattering to others. The GMI has 24 items that are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, and higher scores are associated with a greater sense of mattering to others. Examples of items from the GMI include “People do not care what happens to me,” “People tend to rely on me for support,” and “For whatever reason, it is hard for me to get other people’s attention.” The measure has three factors which identify different aspects of mattering, including Awareness, Importance, and Reliance. In the current study, the GMI had high internal consistency (α = 0.90), and the Awareness, Importance, and Reliance subscales each demonstrated good internal consistency as well (α = 0.84, 0.81, and 0.78, respectively).

Interpersonal Mattering Scale

The Interpersonal Mattering Scale (IMS; Dixon Rayle, 2005) was used as the basis for measuring mattering in an academic context. However, the IMS was slightly modified for this study. The original IMS asked respondents to make ratings for how much they mattered to the following individuals: mother, father, friends, society, school/workplace, and home/community. These options were modified to make the questionnaire more applicable to an academic situation. Ratings in this study were made for: parents/guardians, classmates, General Psychology instructor, and resident assistant. Examples of items include “My psychology instructor pays attention to me” and “I am important to my psychology instructor.” The 9-item IMS asks respondents to rate their sense of mattering on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = disagree to 4 = agree, with higher scores reflecting greater mattering. Each of the rated individuals is treated as a subscale; so for example, there is a mattering score for classmates and a separate mattering score for instructor. In the current study, each of the IMS subscales demonstrated good internal consistency, ranging from 0.84 to 0.92.

Student Ratings and Academic Outcomes

Data were collected regarding students’ final grades in General Psychology. Participants were also asked several questions related to their effort, attendance, and overall learning in General Psychology. Specifically, participants rated the following items on 5-point Likert scales ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree: “My learning has increased in this course”; “My interest in the subject matter has increased”; “The instructor motivates me to do my best work”; and “I study and put effort into this course.” The item “Overall, rate how often you attend class” was rated from 1 = never to 5 = always. The item “Overall, rate the instructor as a whole” was rated from 1 = poor to 5 = excellent. Higher ratings reflected more positive ratings. These items are similar to items that appear on course evaluations at many universities.

Procedure

Participants signed up for this study in order to receive either course credit or extra credit for participating. Participants signed informed consent documents as well as permission forms allowing the researchers to access their grade and GPA data. Participants completed all questionnaires in small group settings. Grade and GPA data were accessed from the university registrar.

Professor–Student Rapport and Mattering

Prior to examining correlations between measures of professor–student rapport and mattering, the relation of demographic variables to all measures was examined. Men (M = 136.41, SD = 16.87) scored higher than women on the PSRS (M = 129.87, SD = 15.25), t (143) = 2.06, p = .04, d = 0.41, but no other demographic variables were associated with PSRS scores or mattering measures.

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and correlations among all predictor variables. The PSRS was significantly positively correlated with several of the mattering subscales on the GMI and IMS. The largest correlation was between the PSRS and the IMS Psychology Instructor subscale (r = .66) which suggests possible overlap in the constructs assessed by these scales. General mattering (GMI total score) was more modestly associated with the PSRS (r = .18). The PSRS was not associated with mattering to parents, but it was associated with mattering to classmates (r = .21). The two factors of the PSRS were not related to general mattering and were only significantly associated with the IMS Psychology Instructor subscale (Perceptions of Teacher, r = .51; Student Engagement, r = .50). Regarding correlations between mattering measures, the GMI was significantly correlated with each of the IMS subscales, and the size of these relationships ranged from small to medium. Thus, students’ sense of general mattering was related to their sense of mattering to several specific individuals in their lives.

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Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations for Predictor Variables

Variable	M	(SD)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1. GMI	93.30	(11.06)	1.00	0.87**	0.90**	0.77**	0.20*	0.34**	0.44**	0.13	0.18*	0.06	0.06
2. GMI Awareness	29.91	(4.63)		1.00	0.66**	0.51**	0.21*	0.38**	0.33**	0.11	0.19*	0.06	0.09
3. GMI Importance	39.11	(5.04)			1.00	0.60**	0.20*	0.29**	0.45**	0.07	0.13	0.03	0.00
4. GMI Reliance	24.35	(3.21)				1.00	0.08	0.21*	0.26*	0.18	0.15*	0.07	0.10
5. IMS Psychology Instructor	19.44	(6.15)					1.00	0.41**	0.19*	0.56**	0.66**	0.51**	0.50**
6. IMS Classmates	22.30	(7.51)						1.00	0.18*	0.47**	0.21*	0.08	0.11
7. IMS Parent	34.59	(2.93)							1.00	-0.04	0.11	0.05	0.01
8. IMS Resident Assistant	22.12	(6.77)								1.00	0.34**	0.31**	0.31**
9. PSRS	131.22	(15.70)									1.00	0.83**	0.85**
10. PSRS: Perceptions of Teacher	34.85	(4.29)										1.00	0.68**
11. PSRS: Student Engagement	22.55	(3.92)											1.00

Predicting Student Course Ratings and Grades

In order to examine the relative and total contributions of predictor variables to student outcomes, several multiple regression analyses were performed. Predictor variables were entered simultaneously into the regressions and included the three GMI subscales, the four IMS subscales, and the PSRS. Two separate regressions examined students’ grades, with the dependent variables being General Psychology grade and term GPA. Six separate regressions examined students’ ratings of course outcomes related to their learning in General Psychology. These dependent variables were single-question items related to whether the student’s learning increased, the student’s interest increased, the student felt motivated by the instructor, the student put effort into the course, the student attended class, and overall ratings of instructor quality. The results from these regression analyses are shown in Table 2.

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Table 2.

Standardized Beta Coefficients for Regression Analyses to Predict Student Ratings and Grade Data

	Psychology gradeAdj R2 = .03	Term GPAAdj R2 = .13	Increased learningAdj R2 = .43	Increased interestAdj R2 = .21	Instructor motivates meAdj R2 = .61	EffortAdj R2 = .11	AttendanceAdj R2 = .05	Instructor qualityAdj R2 = .55
Predictor variable
GMI awareness	−.06	–.22	.11	.05	.04	.07	.12	.00
GMI importance	−.11	.10	−.10	.03	.00	−.04	−.16	−.07
GMI reliance	.01	−.13	.07	.00	–.06	.07	.23	−.01
IMS psychology instructor	−.13	−.20	.25	−.16	.00	.04	.10	.03
IMS resident assistant	−.14	.09	−.31**	−.18	.03	−.06	−.18	.03
IMS classmates	.19	.12	.15	.11	.22*	.31*	.24	.06
IMS parents	.35	.40**	−.12	.01	−.23*	.02	.01	–.03
PSRS	.11	.11	.52**	.61**	.68**	.22	.09	.71**

Regarding grades, there were no significant predictors of General Psychology grade. The only significant predictor of term GPA was the IMS Parents subscale. The PSRS was the only significant predictor of ratings of overall instructor quality and increased interest in the course, but the PSRS, in combination with other variables, also significantly predicted ratings of increased learning in the course and feeling motivated by the instructor. The IMS Psychology Instructor subscale and the GMI subscales were not significantly related to any student ratings. Finally, the amount of variance explained in each dependent variable by the mattering scales and PSRS differed substantially, with little variance explained in grade data (Adj R ² = .03 − .13) or ratings of students’ behaviors (Adj R ² = .05 − .11) and significant variance explained in subjective ratings about the course and the instructor (Adj R ² = .21 − .61).

To better understand the potential relationship between objective grade data and students’ self-reported perceptions and behaviors in the class, correlations were computed between these variables. The only subjective student rating significantly associated with final grade in General Psychology was self-reported attendance (r = .21, p = .01).

In order to examine whether the briefer two-factor PSRS developed by Wilson and Ryan (2013) better predicted student outcomes, multiple regression analyses were repeated with the two factors of the PSRS (Perceptions of Teacher; Student Engagement) used in place of the full version of the PSRS. The Perceptions of Teacher Factor was significantly associated with ratings of overall instructor quality (β = .38, p = .004), and the Student Engagement Factor was significantly associated with ratings of increased learning (β = .44, p = .002), increased interest (β = .59, p = .001), feeling motivated by the instructor (β = .46, p < .001), and overall instructor quality (β = .34, p = .01). Similar to the full PSRS, neither of the two factors was significantly associated with objective grade data or student behaviors.