The Influence of Instructional Technology Use and Teacher Immediacy on Student Affect for Teacher and Course

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which teacher nonverbal immediacy moderates the effects of different levels of instructional technology use on students' initial perceptions of affect for the course and instructor. Participants included 549 college students who were randomly assigned to one of eight scenarios depicting first-day class sessions across four levels of technology use (none, minimal, moderate, complete) and two levels of teacher nonverbal immediacy (highly immediate, nonimmediate). A 4 × 2 factorial ANOVA produced a significant two-way interaction effect, as well as significant main effects for both instructional technology use and nonverbal immediacy on students' affect. Planned cell comparisons revealed that the use of instructional technology has primarily a curvilinear effect, though the effect was somewhat different for immediate and nonimmediate teachers. Post hoc comparisons of the curvilinear effect sizes across immediacy conditions confirmed that the curvilinear effect of technology use on students' affect for highly immediate teachers was greater than the effect for nonimmediate teachers. Overall, the results highlight the importance of considering those instructor behaviors that moderate the influence of instructional technology in the classroom.