Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 101

Internet Learning Journal – Volume 4, Issue 1 – Spring 2015
available books. Thus, this small sample size limits the generalizable findings to other
textbooks. The results of the study may be generalizable to the educational publication
community.
Delimitations
The textbooks for the study were not available in a portable document format (PDF).
However, if each of the 19 textbooks were available electronically, the accuracy in counting
among coders would not necessarily increase. Accuracy is limited even with an electronic
sample that affects what coders can and cannot count in the textbooks. In the study, coders
did not count bullet points, direct quotes, and sidebar stories because these did not constitute
the definition of a paragraph.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
A review of the literature indicated the breadth of teacher immediacy behaviors
traditionally defining this best practice as a communication technique. Therefore, a review
of on-ground classroom immediacy usage and online immediacy usage was conducted.
What makes teacher immediacy such an important part of online education is what has made
immediacy so useful in on-ground classrooms: student satisfaction and retention (Arbaugh,
2001; Duran & Zakahi, 1987; Easton, 2003; Freitas & Myers, 1998; Rocca, 2004).
Teacher immediacy is an example of scholarly knowledge creation. According to
Bleiklie and Powell (2005), universities create knowledge later used in the practice.
Scholarly research illustrates a strong representation of immediacy, and the word immediacy
appeared in scholarly texts more than 30 years ago (Mehrabian, 1971). Immediacy includes
a division between the behaviors that the teacher or student elicits.
Title Searches
The search for pertinent information related to immediacy included sources such as
ProQuest, InfoTrac, Digital Dissertations, and Educational Resource Information Center
(ERIC) databases. In addition, searches on the Internet included using the search engines
Google and Yahoo! and The Chronicle of Higher Education website. However, the most
germane peer-reviewed scholarly studies related to immediacy appeared in the EBSCOhost
(Elton B. Stephens Company) scholarly database. Only peer-reviewed scholarly journals
with full texts available were used in the search process.
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