Instructor Clarity, Humor, Immediacy, and Student Learning: Replication and Extension

This study replicates and extends three widely cited instructional communication research studies regarding instructor clarity, humor, immediacy, and students’ learning: Richmond, Gorham, and McCroskey (1987), Wanzer and Frymier (1999), and Chesebro and McCroskey (2001). Students across four diverse institutions of higher education (N = 1,109) completed survey measures. Replication results suggest that findings from the original studies (clarity, humor, immediacy, and student learning) persist, and extension results, exploring verbal immediacy and perceived immediacy, reveal statistically significant correlations with the original studies’ variables. However, results of the replication and extension reveal measurement validity uncertainties that require further investigation.