Immediacy and Learning Meta-Analysis 19
directly measured in this body of research. Two of the included studies took measures of delayed
recall (Comstock et al., 1995; Titwsorth, 2001), with mixed and inconclusive results. Due to the
small number of delayed recall studies and the lack of statistical independence with other
cognitive learning data, these findings were not included in the meta-analysis.
The affective learning category displayed some general consistency in use of recognized
affective measures derived from Scott and Wheeless (1975) and modified by others (e.g.,
Gorham & Christophel, 1990; Hackman & Walker, 1990; McCroskey, 1994). Identical or similar
semantic differential-type formats for assessing attitudes toward instructors, courses, content, etc.
reoccurred frequently. The average reliability for these measures in the included studies was .92.
We classified measures of behavioral intent (intent to enroll in another course, intent to engage
in certain behaviors, etc.) as affective learning. Consistent with attitude theory (Inskso, 1967;
Triandis, 1971; Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1969) and original measurement (Scott & Wheeless,
1975), intent was viewed as a predisposition to behave in certain way to a specified class of
objects. As a predisposition, this type of measurement is attitudinal (thus, affective), and is,
indeed, measured in sequence with the same type of format and items as the recognized affective
measures. There were, in fact, only two studies (Allen & Shaw, 1990; Shaw, 1988) that
measured actual behavioral learning, an insufficient number for meaningful meta-analysis. These
studies did report, however, that behavioral learning was slightly correlated with nonverbal
immediacy.
When the three types of learning were compared across verbal, nonverbal, and combined-
only immediacy, meta-analysis revealed significant and meaningful results. Studies reporting on
perceived learning and teacher immediacy were found to have 26% shared variance between
nonverbal immediacy and perceived learning (average r = .510, k = 44, N = 13,313) and 24%
Convention