An experimental study of teachers’ verbal and nonverbal immediacy and students’ affective and cognitive learning

Abstract

Previous research involving few experiments generally claims that higher nonverbal and verbal immediacy by teachers increases students’ affective and cognitive learning. In this study, experimental manipulation of combinations of nonverbal and verbal immediacy allowed us to more precisely test these causal links in relation to recall, learning loss, and affective learning. Obtained effects strengthened previous research associating teacher nonverbal immediacy with enhanced cognitive and affective learning outcomes. However, higher verbal immediacy in the experimental manipulations, when combined with higher and lower nonverbal immediacy, was not observed to produce greater cognitive learning. Correlations among recall, learning loss, and affective learning measures were significant, but the cognitive measures were not strongly associated.