Using Moodle to Promote Immediacy and Affective Learning

Immediacy is defined as behaviour which increases perceived psychological closeness between communicators (Andersen, 1979). The results of research in instructional communication suggest that improved immediacy leads to more positive student-instructor relationships engendering positive attitudes, increased interest and motivation by students as well as improved attendance, improved retention, improved student engagement and improved learning (Kearney et al., 1985). When we talk about student learning we are usually only referring to one type of learning behaviour domain, known as the cognitive domain. To understand the different types of learning that take place we have to refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956). Bloom's Taxonomy categorises the hierarchy of learning behaviours into three interrelated and overlapping learning domains; the cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude) and psychomotor (skills). Learning in the affective domain includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations and attitudes. While all three domains are important, educational institutions usually place most emphasis on student cognitive learning at the expense of the other two and research has demonstrated how critical affective learning is to the quality of the learning experience of students and in producing lifelong learners (McCombs, 1991). When dealing with large numbers of students which is so often the case at third-level it is difficult to communicate with each student individually. There are however a number of technology channels that are readily available and can be harnessed by instructors for communication purposes. One of these is out-of-class asynchronous communication by use of feedback and discussion via Moodle (Dobransky & Frymier, 2004). This research is at a very early stage but this paper will postulate how an instructor could harness the judicious use of messages via Moodle to improve the learning experience of students by enhancing immediacy and affective learning.