Abstract
This study used Fiedler’s contingency theory to investigate the relationship between the style, trait anxiety, and experience of university professors and grades assigned to their students. Fiedler postulates that the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) score, a measure of leadership style, significantly discriminates between the behavior and effectiveness of people-oriented persons (those with high LPC scores) and of task-oriented persons (those with low LPC scores). Based on a sample of 40 professors and their classes, this study concluded (a) trait anxiety of the professor significantly affects the grades assigned to students; (b) grades assigned by professors with high LPC scores were significantly and negatively correlated with the trait anxiety of the professor; (c) experience of the professor (as revealed in a trend analysis) has an effect on grades assigned.
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