Do students understand our course structure? implications for important classroom attitudes and behavior created by Joelle D. Elicker, Michelle Singer Foust and Jennifer L. Perry

The complexity of a course's structure may influence how well students understand what is expected of them. Using the foundation of the industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology literature, the authors modified a measure of Perceived System Knowledge (Williams & Levy, 1992) for employee performance appraisal to be appropriate for a classroom situation. This measure of perceived system knowledge of the course (PSKC) (that is, understanding of the course structure as outlined in the course syllabus) was reliable and demonstrated similar relationships as those observed in a performance appraisal context. Specifically, they found significant positive relationships between students' PSKC and their perceptions of classroom fairness (procedural, distributive, and interactional) and satisfaction, as well as student performance. They discuss implications and directions for future research.