Psychological availability to students defines immediacy, a concept traditionally measured using ratings of instructor behaviors. However, students' perceptions of their professor's attitude toward them may serve as a more parsimonious measure of psychological availability. In fact, ratings of a professor's attitude toward students are positively related to student motivation, learning, and ratings of the instructor. In this study, prediction of student outcomes was analyzed in a 2-step regression: First, students' perceptions of their instructor's attitude entered into the equation, followed by immediacy scores. Instructor's attitudes predicted student outcomes well. Although some immediacy components increased variability explained, the increases were small.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersenJ. F. (1979). Teacher immediacy as a predictor of teaching effectiveness. In NimmoD. (Ed.), Communication yearbook 3 (pp. 543–559). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
2.
AndersenJ. F.NortonR. W.NussbaumJ. F. (1981). Three investigations exploring relationships between perceived teacher communication behaviors and student learning. Communication Education, 30, 377–392.
3.
ChristensenL. J.MenzelK. E. (1998). The linear relationship between student reports of teacher immediacy behaviors and perceptions of state motivation, and of cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. Communication Education, 47, 82–90.
4.
ChristophelD. M. (1990). The relationships among teacher immediacy behaviors, student motivation, and learning. Communication Education, 39, 323–340.
5.
ChristophelD. M.GorhamJ. (1995). A test–retest analysis of student motivation, teacher immediacy, and perceived sources of motivation and demotivation in college classes. Communication Education, 44, 292–306.
6.
CohenJ. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
7.
FrymierA. B. (1993). The relationships among communication apprehension, immediacy and motivation to study. Communication Reports, 6, 8–17.
8.
FrymierA. B. (1994). A model of immediacy in the classroom. Communication Quarterly, 42, 133–144.
9.
GorhamJ. (1988). The relationship between verbal teacher immediacy behaviors and student learning. Communication Education, 37, 40–53.
10.
GorhamJ.ChristophelD. M. (1990). The relationship of teachers' use of humor in the classroom to immediacy and student learning. Communication Education, 39, 46–62.
11.
GorhamJ.ZakahiW. R. (1990). A comparison of teacher and student perceptions of immediacy and learning: Monitoring process and product. Communication Education, 39, 354–368.
12.
JohnsonS. D.MillerA. N. (2002). A cross-cultural study of immediacy, credibility, and learning in the U.S. and Kenya. Communication Education, 51, 280–292.
13.
MehrabianA. (1969). Some referents and measures of nonverbal behavior. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, 1, 203–207.
14.
MenzelK. E.CarrellL. J. (1999). The impact of gender and immediacy on willingness to talk and perceived learning. Communication Education, 48, 31–40.
15.
MooreA.MastersonJ. T.ChristophelD. M.SheaK. A. (1996). College teacher immediacy and student ratings of instruction. Communication Education, 45, 29–39.
16.
PribylC. B.SakamotoM.KeatenJ. A. (2004). The relationship between nonverbal immediacy, student motivation, and perceived cognitive learning among Japanese college students. Japanese Psychological Research, 46, 73–85.
17.
PrisbellM.HiltM. L. (2000). Differences in immediacy between traditional and nontraditional students. Psychological Reports, 87, 323–324.
18.
RichmondV. P.GorhamJ. S.McCroskeyJ. C. (1987). The relationship between selected immediacy behaviors and cognitive learning. In McLaughlinM. (Ed.), Communication yearbook 10 (pp. 574–590). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
19.
RobinsonR. Y.RichmondV. P. (1995). Validity of the verbal immediacy scale. Communication Research Reports, 12, 80–84.
20.
RodriguezJ. I.PlaxT. G.KearneyP. (1996). Clarifying the relationship between teacher nonverbal immediacy and student cognitive learning: Affective learning as the central causal mediator. Communication Education, 45, 293–305.
21.
WilsonJ. H.TaylorK. W. (2001). Professor immediacy behaviors associated with liking students. Teaching of Psychology, 28, 136–138.
