Compliance Gaining in a Classroom Setting - Essay Example

Compliance gaining in a room setting Compliance gaining refers to changing people’s behavior intentionally. The aimof compliance gaining is to get people to do what is wanted or desired. Compliance gaining may occur at different levels of interactions under different contexts or situations. This paper bases its discussion in a classroom setting where there are two parties involved, the teacher and students. Mostly, the teacher seeks for compliance from the students on set rules or guidelines. In order to gain compliance within the classroom, the teacher may employ different strategies that allow for compliance gaining within his setting. This paper focuses on the application of three strategies; positive, negative and reward strategies within the classroom setting to gain compliance from students. It discusses the three strategies and how they can be enforced within a classroom setting for their effectiveness. The paper also looks at the limitations involved with each strategy and provides a conclusion on which strategy is the most effective within the classroom setting. The paper also provides for areas for further research and the implications compliance gaining may have on society and practitioners. The term compliance gets used to denote a form of dominance, power, hierarchy or rights over a given situation. Compliance deals with behavior transformation. It refers to the process of trying to change behavior intentionally (Larson, 2009). Compliance gets closely related to persuasion. Compliance infers on getting people to do things a person wants. It is the process of following a proposal or demand. Compliance gaining leans towards behavior change and not belief nor attitude change (Gass and Seiter, 2010). Compliance gaining occurs at different levels of interactions, at both professional and personal relationships. In compliance gaining interactions, there are two parties represented in the form of the message source and message receiver or target. The message source tells the message receiver or target on what he or she should comply with by using different strategies dependent on the setting (Rogers, 2007). This paper shall base compliance gaining process within a classroom setting. A classroom setting comprises of two parties, the teacher or supervisor and students. In a classroom, the teacher commonly seeks for compliance from the students. Students may resist or be apprehensive to certain messages from the teacher. In order to tackle resistance from the students, the teacher has to devise ways which will get the student to do what he or she wants (McCroskey, 1992). This paper shall discuss three strategies of compliance gaining namely; positive, negative and reward strategies. It seeks to answer the question; which is the best strategy to employ within a classroom setting for compliance gaining? The paper shall base its argument on positive, negative and reward strategies employed within a classroom to find out which of the strategies is most effective. In a classroom setting, a teacher may employ positive strategies to seek students to comply with what he or she wants. Dependent on how the students will receive the messages, they may or may not comply. Under positive strategies, the teacher may employ techniques basing on esteem, altercasting, self-feeling, and expertise. Under positive esteem, a teacher can tell the students that better performance in their studies will make people they value to think better of them. This will get the students to comply and perform better. The teacher may use positive altercasting to gain compliance from student within a classroom setting. Under positive altercasting, a teacher can tell the students that those among them with ‘good’ qualities will do what the teacher requires. Positive altercasting seeks to gain compliance by making the students know that compliance is possible only for those with good qualities. Use of positive altercasting can act as stimulation to gain compliance from the students. A teacher can employ positive self-feeling to also get the students to comply (Gass and Seiter, 2010). Positive self-feeling works at making the students have a sense of satisfaction with themselves. The teacher may tell the students by complying; they will feel virtous about themselves. Positive expertise seeks to get students to comply by telling them that through compliance, they will get rewarded naturally. A teacher can encourage students to work hard in their studies since they will become rewarded naturally by getting skilled jobs and better lives. This works at motivating students to comply and follow what they are getting told by their teacher. Positive strategies seek to gain compliance by focusing on communicating encouraging messages to the receivers. It seeks at encouraging students to comply to their teacher’s instruction in order to obtain benefits associated with complying. In a classroom setting, a teacher may also use negative strategies to gain compliance from students. Negative strategies may involve the use of negative esteem, negative altercasting, negative self feeling and threats. The teacher can seek to gain compliance from the students by affecting their esteem negatively. A teacher within a classroom can let students know that non compliance will get people they value to think worse of them (Larson, 2009). This may act as a reality check and activate the students to comply with what their teacher requires. To gain compliance, the teacher may also use negative altercasting strategy. This can be achieved by the teacher telling the students that only those with inferior qualities will not comply. In a bid to disapprove this, students may work at complying in order to not be categorized as having unwholesome qualities by their teacher. A teacher may employ negative strategy in the form of self feeling. Negative self feeling works at letting the students know that through non compliance, they will feel ashamed and embarrassed of themselves. For students not to feel embarrassed, they will work towards complying with their teacher’s requirements so as not to have an awful feeling. Within a classroom setting, a teacher may also apply the use of threats as a negative strategy to get the students to comply. The teacher may threaten the students with punishment to get them to comply (Rogers, 2007). To avoid punishment, the students will work at complying. Negative strategies work at showing the students on what shall befall them if they fail to comply. To avoid the impact of non compliance, the students seek ways they can avoid issues by complying. Within a classroom setting, a teacher can attain compliance gaining by use of rewards. Rewards may be in the form of tokens which the teacher offers those who comply with what becomes required or needed. For students who comply, the teacher may reward them with tokens as a form of congratulating them for complying with what gets required. Students who fail to comply are not rewarded. The students will seek to comply in order to receive the tokens on offer. Rewards act as motivation to get the students to comply (Larson, 2009). A teacher may employ this strategy to gain compliance from students within a classroom setting. Limitations Use of positive strategies within a classroom setting may make the students to feel too attached to the teacher. This may lead to a relaxed atmosphere which may lead to complacency creeping in the classroom once compliance gets attained. Positive strategies may also fail to work with certain students especially those who are non cooperative. Negative strategies may fail to work due to the perception it may create on students. The students may revolt against the use of threat strategy and develop a negative attitude towards the teacher. This leads to non compliance since the students become detached from this strategy from the start. Lack of support from the students’ ensures that compliance gaining by use of this strategy may be minimal. Use of rewards as a strategy for compliance gaining may also be faced with challenges. For instance, the teacher may run out of support to provide more reward tokens to students. This may result to disillusion among the students who may fail to comply since there are no longer any tokens offered by the teacher. A lack of tokens will mean that the students will not comply with what becomes required by the teacher. Areas for future research and implications for practitioners and society as a whole Further efforts and research should be put in place to find ways on how the three strategies can be implemented together to ensure compliance within a classroom setting is gained. If a balance can be struck between the strategies, then a standard way of gaining compliance within classroom settings may be obtained. Relevant stakeholders should also provide support for these strategies to ensure that compliance gaining is achieved within classroom settings. Stakeholders In education can provide financial support to schools and teachers to ensure reward strategies can be upheld till it becomes a success. There should be participation and cooperation between the society, stakeholders, teachers and students for the success of compliance gaining within classroom settings. Society and stakeholders provide support for the process while teachers should oversee the process. Students should cooperate and ensure they comply and do what is required. Conclusion Positive, negative and reward strategies can be employed within a classroom setting to gain student compliance. The three strategies can be employed individually to obtain compliance from students by the teacher. Dependent on how the strategies get developed and employed, compliance gaining is possible to be achieved within the classroom. No particular strategy stands out as lacking in limitation. A combination of the three strategies may help neutralize and compliment each other in compliance gaining within the classroom. References Larson, C. U. (2009). Persuasion: Reception and Responsibility. Kentucky: Cengage Learning. McCroskey, V. P. (1992). Power in the classroom: communication, control, and concern. Kentucky: Routledge. Rogers, W. (2007). Persuasion: messages, receivers, and contexts. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Seiter, R. H. (2010). Persuasion, Social Influence, and Compliance Gaining. Ontario: Pearson Education Canada. Wilson, S. R. (2002). Seeking and resisting compliance: why people say what they do when trying to influence others. London: SAGE. Read More