A cross‐cultural and multi‐behavioral analysis of the relationship between nonverbal immediacy and teacher evaluation

Abstract

Nonverbal immediacy of teachers has been demonstrated to be substantially associated with increased cognitive and affective learning in students. The assumption underlying the current research is that teacher communication behaviors that enhance student learning will also enhance positive evaluations of teachers by those students. This study sought to determine what specific teacher nonverbal immediacy behaviors are most associated with students' evaluations of their teachers.

Our research was based on data drawn from the cultures of Australia, Finland, and Puerto Rico as well as the dominant United States culture. Each study was conducted in the primary language of the sample studied. The results of this research permit a comparison of the relationship between nonverbal immediacy and teacher evaluation across diverse cultural and linguistic communities as well as multi‐cultural comparisons of the importance of individual immediacy behaviors to teacher evaluation.