Academic Entitlement and Expectations: Instructor Responses to Student Cell Phone Use in Class

This study investigated how and why academic entitlement shifts the expectations of students about instructor responses to student cell phone use in class. Framed in variables from expectancy violation theory and communication competence, the experiment (N = 480) indicated that violation valence, violation importance, and violation expectedness were influenced by faculty responses (or lack of response) to off-task cell phone use. In addition, communication competence judgments were influenced by faculty responses to cell phone use. Academic entitlement was also negatively associated with violation importance and perceptions of faculty appropriateness. The most expected and appropriate response reported was faculty requesting that students put away their cell phones rather than assigning a point deduction or ignoring the off-task cell phone use.