Incivilities in the College Classroom: The Effects of Teaching Style and Teacher Gender

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher gender, teaching style, and classroom incivilities in composition and business writing courses at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Incivility frequencies were collected from approximately 581 students and twenty-four teachers using surveys.

While it cannot be stated that teacher gender combined with teaching style causes more incivilities, this study revealed a correlation between the frequency of incivilities and teacher gender controlled for teaching style. Students of female teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods report more incivility occurrences than students of male teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods.

Findings also revealed that no correlation exists between incivilities and teacher gender alone or teaching style alone, and incivility frequency is no different in composition courses than in business writing courses.

Recommendations for coping with incivilities are provided as well as recommendations for future research.