Teacher immediacy and student learning: An examination of lecture/laboratory and self-contained course sections

Abstract

This study examined teaching assistant’s immediacy in lecture/laboratory and self-contained classes. Two hundred fifty-six students responded to instruments measuring teachers’ immediacy behavior frequency, perceptions of instruction quality, and cognitive learning. No significant difference was identified when comparing lecture/laboratory and self-contained teaching assistants’ immediacy behaviors. But all students who observed frequent immediate behaviors demonstrated higher affective and cognitive learning. Teaching assistants’ ratings had significantly higher levels of faculty-student interaction for self-contained sections but lecture/laboratory sections were significantly higher for student effort/involvement.

Keywords

• teacher immediacy
• teaching format
• student learning
• affective learning
• cognitive learning
• graduate teaching assistants