Date of Graduation

1998

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the relationships between interactive television instructors' perceptions of students' nonverbal responsiveness and their perceptions of distance students, teaching effectiveness, teaching satisfaction, teacher-student interpersonal relationships, and their preferring to teach in the interactive television classroom versus the traditional face-to-face classroom. The sample included 157 interactive television instructors who currently teach or have recently taught in both the traditional face-to-face and interactive television classrooms. All participants were mailed two identical surveys. One was to be completed on students in the traditional face-to-face classroom and the other in the interactive television classroom. The surveys contained measures of student nonverbal responsiveness, student impressions, teaching effectiveness, teaching satisfaction, teacher-student interpersonal relationships, and selective preference of teaching venue. In order to test the seven research questions, which examined relationships between the variables and mean differences between instructional contexts, the data were subjected to Pearson correlations and tests of significant difference. Three general conclusions can be drawn from the data analyses. First, interactive television instructors' perceptions of students' nonverbal responsiveness are positively related to their perceptions of student impressions, teaching effectiveness, teaching satisfaction, teacher-student interpersonal relationships, and their preferring to teach in the interactive television classroom. The second conclusion is that with the exception of student impressions, instructors' perceptions and evaluations of students' nonverbal responsiveness, teaching effectiveness, teaching satisfaction, teacher-student interpersonal relationships, and selective preference of teaching venue are higher in the traditional face-to-face classroom than in the interactive television classroom. These significant differences coupled with the aforementioned positive correlations highlight how perceiving fewer students' nonverbal responsive cues may be problematic for interactive television instructors. The third conclusion is that receiving both visual and audible nonverbal cues from distance learners via two-way audio/video versus two-way audio/one-way video delivery systems enhance perceptions of nonverbal responsiveness in addition to perceptions of student impressions, teaching effectiveness, teaching satisfaction, and teacher-student interpersonal relationships. Seven implications for interactive television instructors and six directions for future research are offered.

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