A model of immediacy in the classroom

Teacher immediacy has been examined quite extensively in recent years with the encouraging results that it is a useful teaching strategy. Two things lacking in extant research on immediacy are evidence of a causal relationship between immediacy and learning, and an explanation of why immediacy may lead to learning. Two models of the immediacy‐learning relationship, based on extant research, were tested using path analysis with panel data collected over the period of a semester. An effort was made to explain the results using Keller's (1983, 1987) model of motivation, and to extend this explanation to other classroom communication variables.