Initiating and maintaining student-instructor rapport in online classes

We investigated the behaviors and contextual factors college instructors rely upon to cultivate rapport with students in asynchronous online courses. Nineteen phenomenological interviews revealed that online instructors view rapport-building as a two-pronged process of initiating and subsequently maintaining rapport with students. Findings also indicated that online instructors rely upon different rapport-related strategies and contextual factors to initiate and maintain rapport. During the first weeks of the semester, these instructors rely upon connecting, information sharing, and common grounding behaviors to initiate a sense of rapport from their students. Going forward throughout the semester, these instructors rely upon attentive and courteous behaviors while providing learners with personalized instruction to maintain rapport. Findings from the present study provide insights into how college instructors approach the rapport-building process with students in online learning environments and can be used as a framework for helping college instructors make rapport-related decisions in their online classes.