Abstract:

Academics have identified five main reasons why university students communicate with their teachers. These are, namely: relational, functional, excuse-making, participatory, and sycophantic. On a sample of 428 university students, this study aims at understanding the main motives for communicating with teachers and how this changes according to student culture. For that purpose, students from three different countries participated in the research, i.e. Spain (N=146), Italy (N=125), and Croatia (N=157). The relationship between the five communication motives and student satisfaction with communication is also analysed. Overall, findings show that functional and participatory motives are the most frequently reported on the total sample, followed by sycophantic, excuse-making, and relational motives. Significant differences are found on the cultural level for all the communication motives. Thus, students from Croatia reported higher levels for relational and participatory motives, while Spanish students communicated with their teachers more than others students did for functional, excuse-making, and sycophantic reasons. Significant correlations are found between satisfaction with communication and four motives, i.e. relational, functional, participatory, and excuse-making. Cultural differences in the strength of the relationships are found for excuse-making, participatory, and sycophantic communication motives.

Keywords:

Communication motives, satisfaction with communication, culture.