The Relationship between University Students’ Perceptions of Faculty Members’ Undesirable Behaviors, Their Trust for Faculty Members and Class Participation

The main objective of the present study is to investigate the university students’ perceptions about
the undesirable behaviors of the faculty members, their trust levels towards faculty members,
students’ class participation, and to scrutinize the relationship between these variables. Furthermore,
the study aims to identify how and in which direction faculty members’ undesirable behaviors affect
the university students’ trust for faculty members and active participation into class activities. Thus,
the relationship between three variables were analyzed via structural equation modelling. Study
group included 327 volunteering students who attended pedagogical formation program held in
Inonu University during the summer semester of 2013–2014 academic year. “Undesirable Behavior
in Faculty Members”, “Confidence in Faculty Members”, and “University Students Class
Participation” scales were used to collect data. Findings indicated that the trust of students towards
faculty members and faculty members’ undesired behaviors affected students’ active participation
into class activities. It was concluded that the both variables explained the 16% of the variance in
students’ classroom participation level.