In order to prescribe instructional strategies that match individual learning styles, a study examined the relationships among students' gender, communication avoidance behavior, and classroom achievement. Additionally, the study investigated the relationship of the instructor's gender to the student's perception of instructor immediacy and the experiencing of cognitive and affective learning. Data collected on 389 undergraduate students indicated that females experience more communication apprehension (CA) in the classroom, but females were generally more immediate than males. Male students showed a preference for more independent and avoidant learning styles, while female students preferred collaborative and participative learning styles. Interestingly, though female students reported higher CA in the classroom, they experienced more affective and cognitive learning than male students. Overall, communication variables proved to be better predictors of learning than learning style variables. Low CAs learned less and felt worse about themselves in the classroom. Female instructors assigned higher grades and were perceived as more immediate than male instructors. (A 72-item reference list and 4 data tables are appended.) (Author/GPL)