Faculty and Facebook friending: Instructor–student online social communication from the professor's perspective

• Faculty and student expectations of Facebook social interaction are congruent.
• Faculty–student socializing on Facebook increases as teachers' PERC scores increase.
• High disclosers greatly expect that students will perceive them as approachable.

U.S. college faculty with Facebook profiles (N = 308) were surveyed about their expectations of students' perceptions of their credibility, professionalism, and approachability in the classroom, as well as mutual connectedness with their instructors, resulting from out-of-classroom socializing with them and teacher self-disclosure on Facebook. Consistent with uses and gratifications theory, these teacher attributes made up the Professors' Expected Relationship Compensation scale (PERC), which was correlated to professors' frequency of Facebook interaction with students (r = 0.41, p < 0.001). Multiple regression confirmed the persistence of this large-sized effect after accounting for the influence of six other variables, including instructors' level of self-disclosure. These characteristics have been shown to relate positively to student-reported enhancements of academic outcomes and satisfaction. Faculty participation in non-academic, online interaction through Facebook shows great promise for augmenting student perceptions of their college experience and academic performance because it aligns professors' uses with students' expectations.