An experiment testing the effects of teacher immediacy, organizational lecture cues, and student notetaking on students\u27 affective and cognitive learning

This study tests the effects of teacher immediacy, organizational lecture cues, and student notetaking on student affective and cognitive learning. Teacher immediacy behaviors include verbal and nonverbal stimuli which generate perceptions of psychological closeness between a teacher and her/his students. Immediacy behaviors can include eye contact, personalized examples, vocal variety, and natural movement about the classroom. Organizational lecture cues are verbal signals indicating the structural elements of a lecture. These cues can consist of verbal advance organizers, explicit transitions between main and subordinate points, and verbal summaries of lecture content. Affective learning is a students\u27 sense of liking, motivation, or attention toward instruction. Cognitive learning represents a students\u27 ability to recall, analyze, or synthesize information. Available literature indicated that teacher immediacy, organizational cues, and student notetaking could all potentially influence students\u27 affective and cognitive learning. A 2 (high immediacy/low immediacy) x 2 (with organizational cues/without organizational cues) x 2 (with notetaking/without notetaking) experiment was conducted using scripted videotaped lectures viewed by 223 participants. Participants levels of affective and cognitive learning were assessed immediately after viewing the lecture and then again one week later. Notes taken by participants in the notetaking condition were also analyzed for completeness and organization. Results of the experiment indicated that teacher immediacy had its greatest effect on students\u27 affect toward instruction. Teacher immediacy had its most substantial effect on immediate student affect, and had some negative effects on cognitive learning. Cognitive learning was influenced by a combination of factors. Notetaking consistently had a main effect on cognitive learning with effect sizes ranging from .07 to .25. Organizational cues also had a moderately consistent effect on cognitive learning. For three of the tests, immediacy interacted with organizational cues to influence cognitive learning. Although immediacy appeared to distract students from learning details from a lecture in the short term, immediacy resulted in longer retention of information for students. The quantity and organization of students\u27 notes in the notetaking condition also significantly predicted their scores on achievement tests. Finally, immediacy and organizational cues both influenced the number of details and organizational points recorded in students\u27 notes. Based on the results of the study, the optimal learning condition for promoting long-term achievement is where students take notes over lectures containing organizational cues and immediacy. These results are discussed in terms of their contribution to current research. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are also discussed