Teacher nonimmediacy and misbehavior: Unintentional negative communication

Abstract

This study involved the manipulation of teacher immediacy and teacher misbehaviors to determine their individual and combined impacts on perceived teacher immediacy and teacher misbehavior. Participants in the study were students enrolled in undergraduate communication classes. The results indicated that teacher nonimmediacy and teacher misbehaviors could not be manipulated independently. Analysis of variance indicated that nonimmediate teachers were perceived to be misbehaving even when no misbehaviors were induced in the experiments. It was concluded that students perceive teachers who communicate in nonimmediate ways as misbehaving.