Communication apprehension, nonverbal immediacy, and negative expectations for learning

Data was collected to determine the effects of communication apprehension and nonverbal immediacy upon students' expectations of themselves as learners and to examine relationships among students' trait‐like communication apprehension, self‐perceived immediacy and instructors' evaluations. As expected, as apprehension went up, immediacy went down. Students who were high in apprehension or low in immediacy expected to achieve less in the classroom. Instructors' grades varied in predicted directions. Highly apprehensive and lowly immediate students received lower grades on average, but differences between high, moderate, and low levels were not significant. It is suggested that in some cases high motivation to achieve may compensate for being high in oral anxiety or low in nonverbal immediacy behaviors. All too often, however, lowered expectations for learning develop and set off a spiral of negative reciprocity which leads to lower evaluations by instructors.