ABSTRACT
K. David Roach developed a measure of how frequently instructors use power strategies in the classroom to motivate or encourage students to learn or behave in other positive ways in the classroom. The theoretical foundation for the measure was originally developed by French and Raven (1959) who identified five power base dimensions: expert, referential, reward, coercive, and legitimate. Expert power is a perception that the other person has expertise or knowledge that would justify compliance. Referential power seeks compliance through identification with the other or a desire to please the other. Reward power is based on a perception that the other can provide a reward or incentive to reinforce the behavioral compliance. Coercive power refers to perceptions that punishment will result if they do not comply with power figure’s request. And legitimate power is based on a perception that the other has justifiable or rightful power in this situation. Roach (1995) created four items to tap each of these five dimensions and gathered data from almost 1,000 college students about their perceptions of their teaching assistant’s (TA) use of power in the college classroom.
