We examined the impact of instructor characteristics and student beliefs on students' decisions to enact instructional dissent using the Instructional Beliefs Model (IBM) as a framework. Students (N = 244) completed survey questionnaires assessing their perceptions of instructors' clarity, nonverbal immediacy, and affirming style, as well as their own academic self-efficacy and communicative behaviors following a disagreement or difference of opinion with the instructor. Results indicated that students' academic self-efficacy mediates the relationship between instructor behaviors and two communicative outcomes of instructional dissent. Students who perceived their instructors as clear were more likely to have high self-efficacy for the course and therefore engage in more positive (i.e., rhetorical) forms of dissent as opposed to more negative expressive dissent. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)