Clarifying the relationship between teacher nonverbal immediacy and student cognitive learning: Affective learning as the central causal mediator

Recent research advanced a causal model explaining the teacher immediacy/student learning relationship by positing the mediational effects of students' state motivation to learn. This study argued instead for an alternative model which posits that affective learning, not state motivation, is the central causal mediator between teacher immediacy and students' cognitive learning. To test this causal model, students (N = 224) were asked to evaluate the instructors of their class meeting immediately after the course where they completed the questionnaires. These surveys included measures of teachers' nonverbal immediacy, students' state motivation to learn, and affective and cognitive learning. Path analytic tests of both models indicated that the Affective Learning Model provided the better theoretical explanation for the relationship between immediacy and cognitive learning.