ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1585447
This article is part of the Research TopicEmotional Intelligence in Educational Psychology: Enhancing Learning and DevelopmentView all 5 articles
The Effect of Professor Feedback Emails on Student Classroom Participation
Provisionally accepted
- Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, United States
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
This study looks at how the tone and structure of professor feedback emails affect students’ motivation and classroom engagement, using Reactance Theory to explain their responses. We hypothesized that disrespectful language and disorganized instructions, referred to as "hassle," would trigger psychological reactance, a motivational response to perceived threats to autonomy, leading to negative perceptions and reduced willingness to participate. A sample of 148 college students responded to vignettes that varied in the level of respect conveyed in the email’s tone and the clarity of the instructions. A 2×2 ANOVA revealed significant main effects for respect, with students who received low-respect messages perceiving bias and reporting lower intentions to engage in class. Hassle also influenced student responses, particularly when respect was high. These findings suggest that subtle features of communication can activate reactance and shape students’ motivation. We interpret these results through both Reactance Theory and Self-Determination Theory, highlighting how threats to autonomy and unmet needs for respect and competence may reduce student engagement.
Keywords: Feedback, reactance, respect, Hassle, Reactance theory, Autonomy-threat, Self Determination theory Common Triggers Controlling language (e.g., "You must…")
Received: 28 Feb 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Akolgo, Robiullah and Ramirez. 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: Gerardo Ramirez, Ball State University, Muncie, 47306, Indiana, United States
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.