Prevalence of Academic Incivility in Students: The Role of Classroom Management Styles, Academic Entitlement, and Ambition

Academic incivility is one of the common behaviors among students and is defined as rude and unacceptable verbal and non-verbal behaviors of students towards other students and teachers. Incivility that is frequently observed in higher education environments affects the teaching process, and has a negative effect and weakens teacher-student relationships. The most important behaviors based on incivility among students are disorderly class, humiliation of other students, irregular attendance in class, bad sitting, non-observance of standards and unprepared presence of students in class. Among the variables that can be related to students' academic uncivilization are classroom management style, academic entitlement and ambition.

Classroom management styles include noninterventionist, interventionist, and interactionist. In the noninterventionist style, the teacher is less involved in regulating students' behaviors; In the interventionist style, educators must be fully involved in regulating the behavior of learners; and in interactive classroom management style, both teachers and learners are responsible for people's behavior in the classroom. The teacher's poor management style in the classroom leads to academic incivility behaviors such as arriving late to class or leaving the class early. Academic self- entitlement means that a person likes to receive better academic grades from his peers, and the expectation of receiving academic grades is beyond reality. With the increase in entitlement, academic incivility also increases in students. The relationship between academic self- entitlement and academic incivility has been confirmed. Ambition involves general persistence, based on which individuals expect to achieve a certain level of goal achievement in all areas, not just in a single area. Ambition includes both positive and negative types; Positive ambition has a positive relationship with academic progress, and in previous researches, the relationship between ambition and academic incivility in students has not been investigated; therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of academic incivility in students and the role of classroom management styles, academic entitlement, and ambition in prediction academic incivility.

This research is descriptive-correlational research. Based on this method, academic incivility in students was considered as criterion variable and classroom management styles, academic entitlement, and the ambition as predictor variables. The statistical population of this research was made up of all undergraduate students of University of guilan in 2022, which were approximately 16,000 students. The statistical sample included 511 students who were selected from different faculties (literature and humanities, basic sciences, agriculture, and engineering). In this way, first, 20 classes were considered as samples. Then, among the different faculties, 5 classes were selected in a multi-stage clustered sampling method and completed the research questionnaires. 511 questionnaires were distributed among different classes, of which 78 questionnaires were incomplete; finally, the sample was reduced to 433 students. To collect data, academic incivility, class management style, academic entitlement, and positive and negative ambition were used. Pearson correlation and stepwise regression were used for data analysis.

The results showed that the most behaviors based on academic incivility were: entering class without preparation, being bored in class, coming late to class, talking while teaching, not paying attention in class, complaining along with opposition in class and interrupting class or finish the class. It can be argued that students experience different roles at home, university and society, and these roles are in conflict with their physical and emotional resources. These multiple roles and their lack of proper management by students cause students to face stress and this stress can create academic incivility in them. In other words, it can be said that academic incivility is a reaction to student stress.

The results showed that interventionist, and interactionist class management had a significant role in predicting students' academic incivility. The non-interventionist class management style is the way in which the learner himself is responsible for controlling his behavior in the class and the learner does not interfere much; Therefore, students may be better able to control their behaviors in the classroom and less engage in behaviors based on academic incivility; In interactive classroom management style, both teachers and learners are mutually responsible for their behaviors in the classroom; Therefore, there is a two-way interaction between professors and students, and this interaction can lead to mutual respect between them; Therefore, students may show less incivility and negative behaviors in the classroom.

The results showed that academic entitlement had a significant role in predicting students' academic incivility. It can be argued that, students have unrealistic expectations and feel they deserve a level of obedience and favorable behavior from faculty members. Therefore, such wrong feelings cause them to show uncivilized behavior in the classroom. Because they feel that the professors are not in their control and they are probably wronging them in giving grades and other behaviors.

The results showed that negative ambition had a significant role in predicting students' academic incivility. It can be argued that in negative ambition, a person likes to get ahead of others in any way and wants to reach high power and status; In other words, if students have this type of ambition, they try to break the rules and regulations of the classroom and show uncivilized behaviors in the classroom with self-righteousness, which is one of their characteristics.

One of the limitations of this research was the use of quantitative method instead of qualitative, which suggests that future researches should use combined quantitative and qualitative methods or qualitative method. This research was conducted among undergraduate students, and the generalization of the results to master's and Ph.D. students is accompanied by caution. Despite this, the results of the research showed that more than 50% of students exhibited some behaviors based on academic incivility, such as being late to the classroom, talking during teaching, entering the class without preparation, being bored in the class, and lack of attention in the classroom. Also, the results showed that interactive classroom management style, academic entitlement, interventionist classroom management, and negative ambition had a significant role in predicting students' academic incivility. Therefore, it is suggested that university professors use positive teaching styles, including interactive and non-interventionist teaching styles. It is also suggested that counselors and psychologists working in student counseling centers pay attention to the role of academic entitlement and negative ambition in increasing the behaviors based on academic incivility and organize the necessary solutions to improve academic entitlement and negative ambition in the educational workshops for students.