• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.361-371
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• 2021

Communication education research has focused on the effects of instructor characteristics on learning. It is necessary to consider student characteristics as well to develop an effective teaching strategy. The current study tries to classify students into multiple distinct groups depending on their personality traits and communication characteristics and investigates differences in effects of teacher characteristics between those groups. A survey on unversity students was conducted to collect data. A cluster analysis was carried out to identify distint sub-groups of respondents by their personality traits and communication characteristics. The analysis yielded two distinct groups. The two groups were named stable-reticent group', and 'neurotic-talkative group' respectivley. Series of multiple regression were carried out in order to investigate differences in the effects of instructor characteristics. The analyses found different patterns of effects between the two sub-groups. The findings suggest that it is necessary to adopt different communication styles and teaching strategies depending on student types.