Abstract
This study investigated relationships among, and changes in, student state motivation, teacher immediacy, and student‐perceived sources of motivation and demotivation across the course of a semester in college classes. Findings supported a causal relationship between teacher immediacy and state motivation and also replicated a pattern in which students perceive motivation as a personally‐owned state and demotivation as a teacher‐owned problem. Test‐retest changes in state motivation and teacher use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors were observed, with absence of negatives more influential than presence of positives in immediacy‐motivation relationships.