Assessing students' perspectives on the influence of instructional immediacy behaviour in engendering participation in online learning environments

The instructional immediacy behaviour of instructors has been found to play a salient role in facilitating learning among students. This is particularly the case in traditional learning environments. The advent of COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to virtual, online environments, especially in Higher Education Institutions globally, but with considerable impact on the developing country, where tuition was mostly predicated on traditional approaches. Although several techniques and platforms have been suggested for extending the utility and impact of an instructor's instructional immediacy within the emergent online learning environments, studies seeking to elicit the perspectives of students concerning the influence of instructional immediacy behaviour of their lecturers, operating within Online Learning Environments on tuition remain scant. This study seeks to contribute towards developing this field to assist effective teaching and learning practices. A phenomenological research design is adopted. Data was collected from a purposively selected sample of interviewees using semi-structured interviews. The data was subsequently analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the instructional immediacy behaviour of lecturers within a Teaching and Learning Environment exuded more influence on the learning abilities of most of the interviewees when compared their Online Learning Experience. This finding is indicative of the need to properly train instructors on how to engage with students effectively in Online Learning Environments.