Gary Creasey, Psychology; Patricia Jarvis, Psychology; Denise Faigao, Psychology; Daniel Gadke Psychology
Although some scholars view learner autonomy as a disposition, it has been documented across all grade levels that this achievement orientation is amenable to change in individual classroom settings. In their study, the presenters monitored changes in learner autonomy based on verbal and nonverbal messages communicated by instructors to students (i.e., teacher immediacy) and the development of the student-instructor relationship. The presenters hypothesized that highly immediate instructors would have students who would eventually feel highly connected to them and such students would ultimately develop the confidence to become more autonomous learners. These predictions were tested via the assessment of teacher immediacy, student-instructor relationships and emerging learner autonomy in a single, randomly determined class over the course of a semester involving a collegiate sample (N = 90). The presentation will focus on the study design, the specific methods used to assess the study variables and some surprising insights about how learner autonomy grows or declines based on instructor behaviors.
