Nonaccommodation and communication effectiveness: an application to instructional communication

ABSTRACT Scholars have long suggested that an individual’s communicative adaptability may function as an indicator of their overall communication competence. In pursuit of this idea in a new context – the classroom – this study incorporates communication accommodation theory (CAT) to investigate how students’ perceptions of instructor nonaccommodation influence their subsequent evaluations of the instructor. Results demonstrated that, when controlling for students’ expected grade, perceptions of nonaccommodation related to content knowledge and student support negatively influenced both instructor credibility and communication competence, while perceptions related to the appropriateness of an instructor’s nonverbal responsiveness and verbal delivery did not have significant effects. Implications for theory and classroom practice are briefly discussed.