Teaching in higher education is fundamentally a communicative process through which understanding, relationships, and student development are negotiated. This study presents a qualitative meta-synthesis of four interconnected research projects examining instructional communication across diverse higher education contexts, including online learning, service-learning, diversity-focused initiatives, and virtual exchange. Rather than reporting a single dataset, the paper integrates findings across these studies to identify overarching communicative patterns shaping holistic student development in culturally diverse and resource-constrained environments. Anchored in Rhetorical and Relational Goals Theory (RRGT), the synthesis demonstrates that instructional communication extends beyond the traditional balance of clarity (rhetorical goals) and rapport (relational goals). Across contexts, students consistently describe meaningful learning as closely connected to emotional and psychological well-being, including confidence, safety, and reduced anxiety. They also highlight professional development outcomes such as intercultural competence, applied communication skills, and employability as central to their learning experiences. These outcomes emerge not from isolated pedagogical techniques, but through everyday communicative practices such as language choice, instructor presence, interactional design, and opportunities for authentic engagement. Based on these integrated findings, the study advances RRGT by proposing an expanded four-dimensional instructional communication framework comprising rhetorical, relational, emotional and psychological well-being, and professional development goals. The paper concludes with practical communication guidelines that translate this framework into strategies grounded in clarity, care, cultural responsiveness, and identity affirmation across face-to-face, digital, and applied learning contexts. By positioning instruction as a communicative and relational phenomenon, this meta-synthesis demonstrates how communication-centred frameworks can fully inform holistic student development in higher education.

Authors:
Rentia du Plessis, University of the Free State, South Africa
Diana Breshears, University of the Free State, South Africa
Luzelle Naude, University of the Free State, South Africa

About the Presenter(s)
Rentia du Plessis is a lecturer in Communication Science at the University of the Free State. Her scholarship centers on instructional communication and extends into interdisciplinary research on student belonging, identity, and well-being within higher education contexts.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rentia-du-plessis-58a36893/details/publications/

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