Digital Commons Network^™

On Theorizing Difference: Culture As Centrism, William J. Starosta, Guo-Ming Chen

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This paper reconceptualizes centrism by examining its underlying causes and dynamics. It argues that centrisms emerge not only as a reaction to mainstream pressures to assimilate but also from a desire to reclaim and preserve valued elements of ancestral heritage. The analysis reveals both essential and fluid dimensions of centrist identity, while challenging the legitimacy of externally imposed identity constructs. Additionally, it critiques the prevalent tendency among intercultural communication scholars to essentialize identity.

Statistical Probability As A Metaphor For Epistemological Probability, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The metaphor, "epistemological probability is statistical probability" is traced to the origins of probability theory. Related metaphors appear both in everyday discourse about social processes, and in social scientific argumentation, often disguised as literal claims. Gambling provides a familiar vehicle for expressing the uncertainties associated with social interactions, and with social science research. Examples are drawn from reports of research on media effects, from everyday conversations, and from political communication.

Intercultural Communication Between Caucasian Unitedstatesians And Salvadorians: Implications For Team Dynamics, Gabriela Couch Melano

Doctoral Dissertations

With the advent of an increasingly interdependent world, organizations and businesses around the globe either purposefully seek or have no other option than to integrate work teams with members from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. This is true in government, the corporate world, education, and the social service fields and community development endeavors, among others. However, multicultural teams most frequently experience frustrations and, at times, significant impasses in their performance. This phenomenon is directly related to differences in values and beliefs towards work, as well as to habits and expectations regarding teamwork (Bennett and Stewart, 1991; Cox, 1994; Donnellon, 1996; …

Case Study Of Public School 370 And Implementation Of An Education Program For Disabled 18- To 21-Year-Old Detainees, Dawn A.J. Downing

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation describes an alternative public high school for adjudicated youth. This report discusses the legal and social issues that justify the need for the implementation of an education program for 18- to 21-year-olds detained in the Baltimore City Detention Center. Analysis of internal and external data sources indicated the need for this case study.

The focus of this study was creating a learning community where educational staff and security staff work together to provide an appropriate education for adjudicated students. The relationship between educators and correctional staff can be an uneasy one when the security and education staffs …

Teacher Mentoring And Teacher Attrition In A Rural Georgia School System, Brenda K. James

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

Teacher attrition is a critical issue. The literature suggests that schools provide professional opportunities for master teachers to mentor new teachers through the use of well-designed induction or mentor programs. These opportunities develop teaching skills, improve teaching performance, and increase teacher retention.

This applied dissertation was designed to improve teacher retention at a high school located in a rural community in South Georgia. A mentoring program was developed and implemented at a high school. The program provided training to select mentors that included nonevaluative supervision, coaching, conflict resolution, collaborative problem solving, communication, and effective feedback strategies.

Mentor teachers and protégés …

An Ethnographic Investigation Of The Relevance Of Shop Floor Culture To Effective Safety Communication In An Australian Minerals Refinery, David R. Leith

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many organisations which aim to achieve excellent workplace safety choose 'culture change' as the means to achieve this. They make use of employee communication media to help re-form the values, beliefs, norms and behaviours which are generally thought to comprise culture. However, culture is a complex and profound phenomenon. Successful communication between two culturally separate groups requires each to achieve an understanding of the other, no less so in workplaces than in societies composed of different cultures.Yet even employers who believe in communicating fully with their workforces find it difficult to convey viewpoints other than their own. Their communication tends …

Parental Involvement In A School Setting, Heather Zevator Lebensburger

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to provide parents with the education necessary to facilitate speech and language enriched environments at home. The problem to be resolved was that minimal parental participation delayed the students’ progress with their speech-language goals. The writer created a parent education program for parents who have children with a speech or language eligibility.

Parents were asked to attend three 1-hour 30-minute seminars on the topic of speech and language services. The first seminar introduced the foundations of speech and language. The second seminar introduced specific information about the treatment process. The last seminar allowed parents to …

The Effects Of Home-School Communication On Parental Involvement, Diana L. Watson

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to study the effects of home-school communication on parent involvement by implementing the program Project S.P.E.A.K.: Students, Parents, and Educators Actively Keeping in Touch.

The targeted population consisted of 24 certified general education teachers, 505 students in grades Kindergarten through Grade 5, and 505 parents of students in Kindergarten through Grade 5. The problem to be solved in this applied dissertation was that parents and teachers were not communicating well with each other. At the targeted site, parent involvement and attendance at school functions had dropped drastically over the past 5 years. The data collected …

Development Of A Career Planning And Placement Model With A Plan For Implementation And Evaluation, Thwanda L. Davidson

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to provide a suggested comprehensive career planning counseling and effective placement services for students at Anderson College with a plan for implementation and evaluation. This development project enabled the researcher to review several components of Career Services models for inclusion in the design appropriate for the students.

The college has not provided comprehensive career planning counseling and effective placement services. A number of students are unemployed, dissatisfied, and frustrated, or at least the ones calling the college are having difficulty finding employment. The researcher conducted an investigation to identify significant information pertaining to the intent …

Development Of A Web-Based Community For The Business Internship Program At Franklin Pierce College, Jason C. Little

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

The problem is that up-to-date and efficient communication and information sharing among stakeholders including students, faculty advisors, employer supervisors, and alumni are necessary for the internship program to meet its goals.

The following six research questions were included in this study:

1. What are the characteristics of a successful web-based learning community?

2. What specific content should be included in the internship web-based learning community?

3. What are the appropriate design elements for an internship web-based learning community?

4. What specific elements should guide the development of an internship webbased learning community?

5. What elements should be included in the …

Development Of A Needs-Driven Theory-Based Model For Medication-Taking Education With Plans For Implementation And Evaluation, Jana M. Bajcar

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

The medication-taking education needs of individual patients on long-term medications are not being adequately met by traditional medication-taking education provided by health care providers. The aim of this study is to develop a model for an approach to medication-taking education that can be used by health care providers for patients on long-term medications. The goal is to develop an approach that is based on patients’ perspectives of their medication-taking education needs and that is also grounded in relevant health and education theories.

The present research study is a qualitative study of the medication-taking education needs of 10 well-educated individuals who …

The Cowl - V.67 - N.9 - Oct 31, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 67 - No. 9 - October 31, 2002. 28 pages.

The Effects Of Communication Modality On Teamwork Processes, Thomas D. Fletcher

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since the onset of the digital age, organizations have been able to make use of teams of individuals distributed geographically to remain competitive. While strides have been made to understand the effectiveness of collocated teams, research has yet to sufficiently explore the effects of emerging technologies on team processes and effectiveness. A laboratory study, where dyads were asked to create a spreadsheet by following a set of explicit instructions (i.e., a psychomotor task), was conducted to manipulate the communication modalities most commonly used between collaborators (i.e., face-to-face vs. audio) and compare the effects of adding a shared workspace application. The …

The Cowl - V.67 - N.4 - Sept 19, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 67 - No. 4 - September 19, 2002. 32 pages.

The Cowl - Sept 12, 2002 - Welcome Back Special Issue

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. September 12, 2002 - Welcome Back Special Issue. 8 pages.

Bilingualism: Language, Memory And Applied Issues, Jeanette Altarriba

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Bilingualism, or the knowledge of more than one language, is quite prevalent throughout the world. However, much of the cognitive literature that exists on language processing and memory retrieval has included participants who are monolingual speakers. The current chapter introduces the ways in which bilingualism has been investigated in the areas of autobiographical memory, memory recall, and communication in applied settings. The notion of code-switching or language-mixing is introduced as a strategic means through which bilingual memory may be fruitfully investigated.

Center For Psychology Studies Newsletter - Summer 2002, Nova Southeastern University

Center for Psychological Studies Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Experiencing Discovery: Designing For Visual Delight, Sandy Knight

Theses

None provided.

The Cowl - V.66 - N.27 - May 2, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 66 - No. 27 - May 2, 2002. 36 pages.

How Underlying Patient Beliefs Can Affect Physician-Patient Communicaion About Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing, Michael H. Farrell, Margaret Ann Murphy, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Routine cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is controversial, and practice guidelines recommend that men be counseled about its risks and benefits. OBJECTIVE. To evaluate the process of decision making as men react to and use information after PSA counseling. DESIGN. Written surveys and semistructured qualitative interviews before and after a neutral PSA counseling intervention. PARTICIPANTS. Men 40 to 65 years of age in southeastern Michigan were recruited until thematic saturation—that is, the point at which no new themes emerged in interviews (n = 40). RESULTS. In a paper survey, 37 of 40 participants (93%) said that they interpreted the …

Interpersonal Conflict Within The Context Of The Organization, Jodi Lynn Sauders

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This investigation was concerned with individual conflict management styles and situations. Participants were asked to complete the Organizational Communication Conflict Instrument (OCCI) (Putnam & Wilson, 1982) based on a particular conflict with a friend who is not a co-worker and a friend who is a co-worker. Results found that individuals do not change their conflict management styles based on situations. Also considered were the Big Three (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985) personality types and their relationship to variability in one's conflict management styles. There were no relationships between variability and the Big Three.

The Cowl - V.66 - N.26 - Apr 25, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 66 - No. 26 - April 25, 2002. 32 pages.

Center For Psychology Studies Newsletter - Spring 2002, Nova Southeastern University

Center for Psychological Studies Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A War Of Words: Halo Songs Of Abuse Among The Anlo Ewe, Corinna Campbell

African Diaspora ISPs

Sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me. Nearly every American child is taught the phrase. The Anlo Ewe of Ghana, however, have more reverence for the damaging potential of language. Their songs of abuse, or halo, are at once an artistic medium, a social control , and a source of humor and entertainment. At the same time they are a form of verbal warfare, with victims and casualties the same as in any other type of war. This mode of communication is at times beautiful and profound, yet because of the damage it can …

The Cowl - V.66 - N.22 - Feb 28, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 66 - No. 22 - February 28, 2002. 32 pages.

The Cowl - V.66 - N.20 - Feb 14, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 66 - No. 20 - February 14, 2002. 36 pages.

The Cowl - V.66 - N.19 - Feb 7, 2002

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 66 - No. 19 - February 7, 2002. 32 pages.

In Search Of King Solomon’S Ring: Cognitive And Communicative Studies Of Grey Parrots (Psittacus Erithacus), Irene M. Pepperberg

Sentience Collection

During the past 24 years, I have used a modeling technique (M/R procedure) to train Grey parrots to use an allospecific code (English speech) referentially; I then use the code to test their cognitive abilities. The oldest bird, Alex, labels more than 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities to 6, 3 categories (color, shape, material) and uses ‘no’, ‘come here’, wanna go X’ and ‘want Y’ (X and Y are appropriate location or item labels). He combines labels to identify, request, comment upon or refuse more than 100 items and to alter his environment. He processes queries to …

Stirring The Soul: The Influence Of Prayer On Mind And Body, E. James Baesler

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

From the Introduction:

Individuals within and outside of the field of communication sometimes ask me what I do for a living. When I respond, “I do prayer research,” nearly everyone looks rather puzzled. After I explain that prayer is a type of spiritual communication, then most individuals immediately see the connection between communication and prayer. However, many communication scholars are not convinced that prayer is a communication-related phenomenon amenable to social scientific inquiry. Yet I believe that prayer is indeed worthy of further investigation.

Communicating About Aids-Changes In Understanding And Coping With Help Of Language In Urban Kagera, Tanzania, Aldin Mutembei, Maria Emmelin, Joe Lugalla, Lars Dahlgren

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Faced with the problems of HIV/AIDS, people have to find ways to communicate around them. The aim of this paper is to mirror changes over time in the Kagera people's social cognition regarding HIV/AIDS, using their own language as a tracer of this process. Focus group discussions and personal and group interviews conducted during 1992 to 1995 in urban Bukoba, Kagera, constitute the basis for an analysis of metaphorical expressions in use since 1985. Pronounced uncertainty is later transformed into a deeper understanding of the pandemic and an increased disposition to cope with the situation. Knowledge about the socio-linguistic expressions …