Instructor Communicative Behaviors as Cultivators of Students’ Task Value

The purpose of this study was to understand students’ task value toward a class. Task value is the utility students see in the course material. As expected, good instructional practices (i.e. clarity, nonverbal immediate behaviors) were positive contributors of task value. However, the substantive impact on task value came from information flow, a variable borrowed from the organizational culture literature. The supported model showed instructor clarity and nonverbal immediate behaviors indirectly, positively influenced task value through the mediation of perceived immediacy and information flow. This indicates that a large proportion of whether students have task value in a course hinge upon whether students understand the rationale behind instructors’ pedagogical choices.