Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.

Sec. STEM Education

A Measure of College Student Trust in Their Instructor

Provisionally accepted
Mark J GrahamMark J Graham1*David HanauerDavid Hanauer2Oriana AragónOriana Aragón1Kathy ZhangKathy Zhang1Juliette BennieJuliette Bennie3Julia GillJulia Gill1Tong ZhangTong Zhang1Lia CrowleyLia Crowley1Philip M. ReevesPhilip M. Reeves4Michelle WithersMichelle Withers5Xinnian ChenXinnian Chen6
  • 1Yale University Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, New Haven, United States
  • 2Indiana University of Pennsylvania Department of Language Literature and Writing, Indiana, United States
  • 3Yale University, New Haven, United States
  • 4Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Baltimore, United States
  • 5Binghamton University, Binghamton, United States
  • 6University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

Introduction: In this study we aimed to develop a psychometrically validated instrument to measure college students' trust in their instructor. Recent studies have shown that student trust is positively associated with desired outcome variables like student buy-in, engagement, final grade, and intention to persist in science. Clearly defining and measuring college students' trust in their instructor can inform teaching strategies, enhance student performance, and create opportunities for more engaging classroom environments. Methods: We developed, collected, and validated a measure of student trust in their instructor. Results and Discussion: We established the Trust and Responsiveness in Undergraduate Student Teaching (TRUST) instrument, a 9-item, two factor model. Factor 1 is titled Classroom Trust and Factor 2 as Interpersonal Trust. This instrument contributes to the higher education community's ongoing efforts to increase student engagement and persistence.

Keywords: classroom trust, higher education, instrument validation measuring student trust, interpersonal relationships, relational trust, Student trust in instructor, Trust dimensions, undergraduate STEM education

Received: 27 Jun 2025; Accepted: 19 Jan 2026.

Copyright: © 2026 Graham, Hanauer, Aragón, Zhang, Bennie, Gill, Zhang, Crowley, Reeves, Withers and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mark J Graham

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material