Students' Imagined Interactions as Intrapersonal Explanations for Instructional Dissent

The purpose of this study was to examine how college students' intrapersonal communication experiences (i.e., imagined interactions) with disliked instructors contribute to their proclivity to communicate instructional dissent (i.e., expressive, rhetorical, vengeful). Student participants (N = 181) completed a self-report questionnaire measuring their use of imagined interactions with their worst instructor in the past academic year, along with reports of their course-related dissent. Results of a canonical correlation revealed that the frequency, valence, and rehearsal of students' imagined interactions with a low affect instructor are related to forms of instructional dissenct.