| The purpose of this study was to discover what college students perceived as faculty attributes that provided an inclusive classroom environment at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, a small liberal arts college in the Appalachian mountains of Southwest Virginia. In this study, the term inclusive classroom environment is defined in the following three ways: (1) students feel welcome in the class; (2) they feel welcome to participate; and (3) teacher behaviors in the classroom account for diverse perspectives of the students.; A random sample of 450 students was mailed the perception survey, developed by the researcher from the literature review on inclusive classroom environments. The mailed survey was divided into two parts: (1) Part 1 consisted of 45 item statements that were assigned values from one through five with strongly agree receiving the highest value; and (2) In Part 2, student characteristics were described based on grade classification, student status (full- or part-time), age, gender, whether students are first generation college students, and whether students are residents of Southwest Virginia.; First, this study showed that student perception of teacher behaviors in the classroom could be listed from the most agreeable to the least agreeable perceptions with descending scale means of the following dependent variables: (1) Communication of expectations; (2) Feedback from professor; (3) Respects diverse perspectives; (4) Satisfaction of students; (5) Perceptions of students; (6) Contact with the professor; (7) Diversity in the curriculum; (8) Teaching methods used; and (9) Behaviors of the professor.; Secondly, independent sample t-Tests were run on each of the nine teacher behavior categories to determine if significant differences could be attributed to the six independent variables. There were significant differences (p = 0.05) found for gender, student classification, full-time and part-time students. There were no significant differences found for age, first generation college student, and native resident of Southwest Virginia.; This study demonstrates that students seem positive about professor behaviors in the classroom that create an inclusive classroom environment. Overall, research reported in the literature indicated that inclusive classroom environments increase students' satisfaction, their persistence, retention, enhanced feelings of self-confidence, and improve graduation rates. |
