Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 115

Internet Learning Journal – Volume 4, Issue 1 – Spring 2015
online classroom communication terms, such as collaboration and engagement, rather than
terms that were defined as immediacy. While few or no immediacy citations were predicted,
Textbook 3 included the term immediacy on eight occasions and included a reference to the
operational definition of immediacy, as noted in Appendix B. However, the textbook
included no scholarly immediacy citations. Again, more of the terms related to collaboration
and interaction, not feelings and emotions.
Textbook 6, published in 2005, reflected the highest percentage of combined broad
and minor immediacy terminology with a striking 92.86%. Textbook 2, published in 2006,
represented the second highest percentage of immediacy terminology found at 61.17%.
Textbook 7, published in 2003, and Textbook 16, published in 2000, displayed the lowest
percentages of immediacy terminology found at 4.88% and 7.34% respectively. For a
breakdown of the number of paragraphs containing immediacy terminology per chapter in
each textbook please see Appendix G.
The third research question concerned the specific term immediacy: How many
instances of the word immediacy appear in each of the online teaching textbooks, and which
broad or minor immediacy terms feature most prominently in the first four chapters? Based
on the Coding Book of Definitions’ parameters that included only counting the terms in
paragraphs, not sidebars, direct quotes, or paragraph headers, only one textbook, Textbook
3, published in 2006, yielded any instances of the word immediacy. Textbook 3 reflected the
term on eight occasions.
Assessment of the textbooks for terms closely related to immediacy (e.g., feelings
and closeness) revealed that the highest number of instances interaction appeared (59) was
six times the highest number of instances feelings appeared (9) and four times the highest
number of instances emotions appeared (15) in a single textbook. Aside from the popularity
of the term interaction (a low-broad importance term), compared to immediacy, for example,
the focus of the study, terminology associated with the low-priority minor category, time or
timely, reflected the second highest count of all terms in a single textbook at 58. The
cumulative terminology reflected among all textbooks is minor immediacy terms or broad
terms of a low priority, such as interaction and collaboration.
Mindset, closeness, intimate, proximity, rapport, and prompt, were observed at one
occurrence each. The term mindset was almost non-existent, discovered once as the highest
in any of the textbooks. The terms thoughts (high-broad importance) and togetherness
(medium-broad importance), considered more closely related to immediacy, appeared in five
instances in a single textbooks. The terms nearness, propinquity, affection, and punctual
were not found among the first four chapters in any of the 19 independently authored
textbooks. (see Table 3).
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