The relationships among teachers\u27 immediacy behaviors, credibility, and social style and students\u27 motivation and learning: Comparisons among cultures.

Recent research offers insight concerning the roles of teachers\u27 verbal immediacy, nonverbal immediacy, and credibility in American classrooms, but little work has been done to test the universal effects of these constructs. The primary purpose of this research was to extend previous research by comparing in different cultural groups the relationships among students\u27 perceptions of teachers\u27 immediacy, credibility, and social style in relation to students\u27 perceptions of their own motivation and learning. Relationships among students\u27 perceptions of teachers\u27 verbal immediacy, nonverbal immediacy, competence, character, assertiveness, and responsiveness and students\u27 motivation, cognitive learning, affective learning, and behavioral learning as well as the mean levels for all variables were tested with correlational analyses in three college groups--American, Finnish, and Puerto Rican; in two high school groups--American and Hungarian; and in two junior high school groups--American and Hungarian. Results generally supported the pancultural value of teachers\u27 communication in the classroom, although there were cultural group variations. For the American, Puerto Rican, Finnish, and Hungarian samples in aggregate form, students\u27 perceptions of how their teachers communicate in the classroom do impact students\u27 levels of motivation and learning. Additionally, for the samples in aggregate form and individually, students\u27 perceptions of teachers\u27 immediacy, credibility, and social style in the classroom are significant predictors of students\u27 motivation, cognitive learning and learning loss, affective learning, and behavioral learning