Teacher immediacy research, instructional delivery method, topic relevance, and cognitive and affective learning: An experimental investigation
Abstract
This dissertation was an experimental investigation into the impact of teacher immediacy (high and low), instructional delivery method (live versus videorecorded), and lecture topic relevance (high and low) on students’ cognitive and affective learning. The validity of previous research in these areas was also examined to help put previous findings into perspective by examining the methodological rigor employed. Cognitive learning was measured in three ways: student self-reports (the learning loss measure), a performative measure (10 multiple choice questions about the lecture they viewed), and a re-test of the performative measure 7 to 10 days after viewing the lecture to measure cognitive retention. Affective learning was measured using the affective learner report. The results revealed that high immediacy led to significantly greater cognitive and affective learning. Also, students learned more with a live instructor than with a videorecorded lecture. Instructional delivery method and immediacy interacted in their impact on cognitive learning. On the measures of performative cognitive learning, a live instructor was superior to a videorecorded instructor when immediacy was high rather than low. Instructional delivery method and immediacy also significantly interacted in their impact on affective learning. While students reported significantly more affective learning in live instruction regardless of immediacy level, there was a greater difference in affective learning from live to videorecorded delivery when immediacy was high. There was also a significant difference in learning retention with the high immediacy condition participants scoring significantly higher than those in the low condition. It was also found that students retained significantly more cognitive learning with the live instructor than in the videorecorded lecture condition. The high relevance condition (instruction on a notetaking method) resulted in significantly more cognitive learning than the low relevance condition (where students witnessed a lecture on obscure ancient history). There was a significant interaction between relevance of subject matter and instructional delivery method on student affective learning. Affective learning increased more from irrelevant to relevant topic in the live instructor condition than in the videotaped condition. Also, students who witnessed the notetaking lecture retained significantly more cognitive learning than students in the ancient history lecture condition.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Sparks, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication|Curriculum development
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