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First impressions matter: the effects of third-party reports, experience, and qualifications on students’ expectancies of a lecturer’s competency

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Expectancy formation is an inevitable consequence of lecturer-student interactions and these expectancies may influence student-lecturer relationships. Despite this, little is known about the formation of expectancies within HE. This study aimed to address this gap and investigate the effects of a lecturer's teaching experience, applied experience, qualifications, and the presence of a third party on students’ expectancies of the lecturer’s competency. A cross-sectional between subjects experiment was conducted with 234 undergraduate students (Mage: 20.73 years) who watched one of ten video vignettes within which a lecturer’s teaching and applied experience, qualifications, and the presence of a third party were manipulated. Students rated their expectancies of the lecturer using the Perceived Lecturer Competency Scale and Perceived Influence Scale. ANOVAs revealed that an experienced lecturer with higher qualifications was perceived to be significantly more competent in subject knowledge compared with an inexperienced, less qualified lecturer. Applied experience was more influential on students’ expectancies of the lecturer’s competency compared with qualification and teaching experience. There was no significant difference in students’ expectancies of a lecturer when they introduced themselves compared to them being introduced by a third party when using the same dynamic cues. These findings suggest that lecturers can harness the information cues that they display to students during initial interactions, which is likely to promote the formation of positive expectancies and optimise student-lecturer relationships.
DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2025.2500695
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4410431007
FWCI:
Cites: 79
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Related to: 10