The linear relationship between student reports of teacher immediacy behaviors and perceptions of state motivation, and of cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning

Recent experimental research (Comstock, Rowell, & Bowers, 1995) has suggested a curvilinear relationship between teacher immediacy behaviors and student learning. To help specify the scope and range of this finding, we examined these variables as they occur in actual relationships between college professors and students. In natural settings, we predicted and found positive, linear relationships between teacher nonverbal and verbal immediacy and perceived cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. We also found a positive, linear relationship between both kinds of teacher immediacy and state motivation.