College Student Resistance Toward Teachers’ Use of Selective Control Strategies

Abstract

Based in psychological reactance theory, this investigation examined college students’ resistance to teachers’ use of Behavior Alteration Techniques. Employing a two-sample design, results indicated that both college teachers and students reported limited but predominant use of prosocial strategies for student contrai. These results further indicated that students are more or less resistant to any use of contrai in the classraom. However, students reported greater resistance to those strategies that reflected coercive intent, peer pressure and modeling. Overall, resistance was interpreted as a function of selected strategy use, regardless of the change requested.