Instructor Immediacy

What Is It & Why It Matters

Instructor immediacy refers to the perceived physical or psychological closeness between people (Mehrabian, 1967). Its existence has proven to have significant impact on student motivation, engagement, and success in classrooms both in-person and online. Obviously creating instructor immediacy is more of a challenge in the online environment and like many teaching practices online, it must be made intentionally. Most of us do this naturally to some degree in our course announcements or with our assignment feedback. However, with the way Canvas is set up and course policies are traditionally written, it's not always easy to make our online courses seem like overly welcoming places for students. Studies have shown the implementation of strategies to increase instructor immediacy have also decreased student anxiety. Consider ways you can lower a student's anxiety. 

 

For a good illustration review the following videos. Think about how the learner perceive each video and consider the graphic below. How does this one-to-one vs one-to-many approach change the experience for the student?

  

One-To-One In this video, Ben has created a welcome video to this module. Consider the differences between the two videos. Which feels more personal? (Excuse the squawking children in the back :)

One-To-Many In this video, Professor Batman has included a recording of his in-person class so that his online section of students can get to know him and learn more about his syllabus.

 

Strategies to Implement

This collection of strategies represent research based approaches and feedback from students. 

• Use of student name in correspondence and assignment feedback
• Use of personal examples and shares experiences outside of class
• Provide feedback on student assignments
• Use of praise in student work or participation
• Use of inclusive language (we, our) 
• Video lectures/announcements include the instructors upper body
• Quickly replying to student queries
• Video clips from your office rather than your classroom

 

Resources:

Fahara, Manuel & Castro, Armida. (2015). Teaching Strategies to Promote Immediacy in Online Graduate Courses. Open Praxis. 7.  10.5944/openpraxis.7.4.228. 

Mehrabian, A. (1967a). Attitudes inferred from non-immediacy of verbal communication. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6(2),294–295. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(67)80113-0