Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Connecting To Students: Self-Disclosure As A Motivational Tool For Collegiate Forensic Coaches, Ben Walker

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Forensic coaches spend a large amount of time with their students and often struggle to find effective methods of motivation; however, studies have shown that teachers (Christophel, 1990) and athletic coaches (Turman, 2008) can use immediacy as a way to increase student/competitor motivation. This paper examines how forensic coaches can use a specific interpersonal tactic (self-disclosure) to potentially increase student motivation. The review of literature covers self-disclosure and the link between immediacy and motivation in both educational and competitive settings; next, Petronio’s Communication Privacy Management theory is contextualized with forensic coaches; finally, suggestions are offered to forensic coaches who wish …

A Dramatistic Look At Motive And Egypt’S 2011 Revolution, Blair J. Cook

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the primary motivating factors in the protestors whose demonstrations resulted in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s 2011 revolution. The methodology is rooted in Kenneth Burke’s Dramatic Pentad. The elements of the pentad were observed in 29 articles from Daily News Egypt which were published between January 18 and February 18, 2011. Then the most prominent ratios were examined. Finally, the Guilt-Redemption Cycle was observed in the actions of the protesters. This methodology yielded the motivation of the protesters in Egypt’s 2011 revolution. It was discovered that the protesters had determined …

A Study Of Motivation And Assimilation: Examining Asian International And American College Students' Employment On Campus, Yasa Guo

Masters Theses

The author researched the topic of this thesis from six different aspects: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, international students, student employment, motivation, Cultural Intelligence Theory, and cross-cultural adaptation. There are twenty participants that participated in this research. Among them, ten are Asian international students and ten are American students. All students have been a student at a private Christian university and working for at least one semester. The researcher developed twelve questions related to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for all participants and nine questions related to Cultural Intelligence Theory to only Asian international students. The research methodology of this thesis is …

Causes Of Turnover And Employee Satisfaction: A Case Study Of Otterbein University Telefund, Brandy L. Stiverson

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Organizational communication professionals seek to improve the overall communication needs of organizations and the social interaction processes that occur within. A special focus is given to those communication processes that are aimed at improving relationships between subordinates and employees. Supervisors aim to improve the organizational life for their employees so that they have a happy, effective, and productive run in the organization. However, employees can sometimes feel dissatisfied with their jobs and factors pertaining to their life in and out of the organization. Through examining a call center on a university campus, a greater understanding of employee satisfaction, motivation, and …

Relax And Log On Facebook: Examining Students’ Use Of Facebook To Relieve Academic Stress Through Perceived Social Support, Tamika Tompoulidis

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

College students often times experience academic stress, whether it is due to homework, exams, GPA requirement, or even adapting to the college environment. Social support has been known to reduce stress levels and affect psychological well-being. Social support can also be prevalent on social media sites, such as Facebook. Facebook users can communicate with friends near and far and find the needed support during times of stress. While college students are active Facebook users, little research has examined whether Facebook affects academic stress levels. This study examined if college students use Facebook to gain social support for stress above and …

Emotional Disclosure On Social Networking Sites: The Role Of Network Structure And Psychological Needs, Han Lin, William Tov, Lin Qiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We conducted three studies to understand how online emotional disclosure is influenced by social network structure on Facebook. Results showed that emotional disclosure was associated with both the density and size of users’ personal networks. Facebook users with denser networks disclosed more positive and negative emotions, and the relation between network density and emotional disclosure was mediated by stronger need for emotional expression. Facebook users with larger networks on Facebook disclosed more positive emotions, and the relation between network size and emotional disclosure was mediated by a stronger need for impression management. Our study extends past research by revealing the …

Regulatory Adaptations For Delivering Information: The Case Of Confession, Daniel Sznycer, Eric Schniter, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides

ESI Publications

Prior to, or concurrent with, the encoding of concepts into speech, the individual faces decisions about whether, what, when, how, and with whom to communicate. Compared to the existing wealth of linguistic knowledge however, we know little of the mechanisms that govern the delivery and accrual of information. Here we focus on a fundamental issue of communication: The decision whether to deliver information. Specifically, we study spontaneous confession to a victim. Given the costs of social devaluation, offenders are hypothesized to refrain from confessing unless the expected benefits of confession (e.g. enabling the victim to remedially modify their course of …

The Effects Of Group-Level And Individual Contributions On Business Simulation Team Performance, Kristen Backhaus, Karl Heiner

Organization Management Journal

Studies of team performance in business simulations have not investigated the effect of a “star member” of the team on team performance outcomes. This article reports the findings of a study examining the role of team composition variables, team function variables and the effect of a star player on team score in an undergraduate business simulation. As hypothesized, team performance is associated with the performance of a single outstanding player. Among team composition variables, only intrinsic motivation of team members is associated with team score. A composite measure of team function that included team trust, communication and goal clarity was …

Microbloggers’ Motivations In Participatory Journalism: A Cross-Cultural Study Of America And China, Jue Rui

Doctoral Dissertations

This phenomenological study focuses on the motivations of participatory journalists contributing on microblogs such as Twitter and Weibo. Although online user behavior and motivations have been studied before, few studies have examined motivations of participatory journalists from their own perspective. Moreover, this study is one of the few to explore participatory journalists across different cultures (U.S. and China). The author conducted a total of 13 in-depth interviews with participatory journalists on microblogs from both countries and used a qualitative analysis method to identify the themes and patterns that emerged. Motivations such as earning respect, technology early adoption, self-expression, relationship building, …

An Examination Of Motives, Experiences, And Behaviors Of Mmorpg Players, Theresa Lynn Woods

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are growing in popularity and use worldwide. This study seeks to explore the motivations and experiences of MMORPG players through an extensive online survey with more than a thousand participants (n=1,422). The findings support a complex relationship between the variables, including the direct effects of motivations and flow on the time invested by players in MMORPG play, as well as the mediated effects of motivation via flow. Causal relationships are examined in addition to the significance of direct and indirect effects on frequency of play, yielding several significant results, including (1) the overwhelming importance …

I Am What I Am? The Baller Identity Measurement Scale (Bims) With A Division I Football Team In American Higher Education, C. Keith Harrison, Laurel Traynowicz, Scott Bukstein, Ginny Mcpherson-Botts, Suzanne Malia Lawrence

Scott Bukstein JD

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of culture and socio-cultural contexts on academic and athletic motivation of American male college football student-athletes. This study measured perceptions of student-athletes' athletic and academic identities tied to motivation for performance using a culturally relevant assessment tool, the Baller Identity Measurement Scale.

Attitudes To Storytelling Among Adult Esl Learners, Mi-Ryoung Kim, Theresa M. Mcgarry

Theresa M McGarry

Knowledge, Involvement And Emergency Preparedness, Season Groves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research formed a descriptive frame of the current levels of emergency preparedness and applied Hallahan's Issues Processes Model to examine the relationship between knowledge, involvement, and emergency preparedness among the participants. The variables were measured in the context of self-perception. The research method involved a survey of students who are just becoming responsible for their personal emergency preparedness. The results suggest that students lack overall emergency preparedness measures and show that self-perceived knowledge is positively related to self-perceived emergency preparedness. Yet, higher self-perceived knowledge is negatively related to actual emergency preparedness actions. Thus, the more knowledgeable the participants believed …

Exploring Motivation Through Athlete Communication, Tye G. Davis

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the communication ecology of athlete motivation. Furthermore, gender differences in communication ecologies were evaluated, as were variations in communication tendencies for highly and lowly motivated athletes. Findings suggest that teammates and parents are strong motivators for athletes. Mass media were associated with athlete motivation while social media were not. Gender differences were found with males reporting being more motivated by mass media than females, while females were more strongly motivated by their parents and friends. There were significant differences found in the communication ecologies of highly motivated athletes compared to less motivated athletes. Athletes who were …

Cognitive And Social Factors Affecting The Use Of Wikipedia And Information Seeking, Siyoung Chung

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is the preferred choice among resources used by college students to meet their research needs. However, Wikipedia has been criticized for its low information quality, lack of accountability, inconsistency, and vulnerability to vandalism. Despite the warnings and concerns voiced by academia, online learning tools such as Wikipedia will continue their rise as major learning resource in today's classroom. Using a sample of 184 college students, the study proposed theoretical models to test the effects of internal beliefs, motivations, and social influences on Wikipedia use and information-seeking, and further empirically tested those models. The findings of …

Students’ Writing Self-Efficacy, Motivation, And Experience: Predictors In Journalism Education, Matthew Bryan Broaddus

Doctoral Dissertations

The field of journalism has gone through several years of turmoil as new technology, platforms, and economic hardships have swept away traditional journalistic practices and models. Print media continues to hemorrhage jobs and money while media outlets adjust to technology-enhanced reporting. College journalism majors often face changing curriculum and graduate feeling unprepared to be competitive in the journalistic job market. While many things have changed in the field, one pillar of journalism that has not changed is the need for journalists to possess an excellent writing ability, supplemented with the ability to think analytically. The connection between students’ ability to …

Stoking The Research Fire: Three Views, Charles C. Self, Margeretha Geertsema-Sligh

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Most academics are fired up for research right after graduate school, but after a few years on the job, the flame might wane. Perhaps you are over-burdened with service or administration and can't imagine finding time for a research project. Budget cuts may have you feeling overworked or uninspired. Perhaps you've achieved your goal of becoming tenured and you wonder what comes next. The purpose of this collection of essays, presented originally at a 2011 midwinter conference, is to share ways to stoke a passion for research. The perspectives included here represent three stages of academic life: tenure-track assistant professor, …

Keeping Church Goers Motivated: Church Worship Communication Study, Anne Trelstad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At a time when mainline Protestant churches in America are concerned with stagnant or declining worship attendance (Duin, 2008) a better understanding of worshippers' motivations could help church leaders plan and create positive worship experiences (Katt & Trelstad, 2009). This study extends the scope of the previous research of Katt and Trelstad by employing a larger sample of purposively selected churches. It attempts to more clearly answer the following question more clearly: What types of incidents serve as motivator and de-motivator factors in the church worship service setting? A sample of 105 church members from thirty-eight churches participated in a …

Improving Flavor Of Slo: Volunteer Engagement, Motivation, And Goal Setting In Event Planning, Kendall Ann Young

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Leaders Of Today Are Challenged By Generation X Workforce Retention, Joyce K. Kutin

Joyce K Kutin RN, MSN, MOL

Many organizations today are comprised of a culturally diverse workforce. In addition to organizational diversity related to gender, ethnicity, race, or religious beliefs, there are also four different generations working side by side. Today’s workforce includes the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. The Silent Generation is known for their lifestyle approach of consistency, uniformity, conformity, law and order, hard work and playing by the rules. Baby Boomers were the first generation to grow up with television; they were the first to have broad access to news, issues, advertising, and a variety of programming. Generation X …

Faking Altruism: The True Nature Of Giving, Kristina L. Barker

Communication Studies

I want to see if students are capable of donating to charities. I have picked the American Red Cross to donate to and in support of helping the disaster in Japan. This is a huge effort publicly and students have seen the destruction on a daily basis. I want to see how much students are willing to donate and if different selling strategies make a difference on donations. I will be promoting sunglasses as a gift incentive for donations, with each pair raising $3.60 towards relief efforts. I will be selling the incentives in-group settings and to individual students on …

Learning Languages Through The Media: Toward An Understanding Of The Mediated Language Acquisition Process And The Motivation Cycle Of Mediated Language Acquisition, Kenneth F. Trent

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing in-depth interviews and constant comparative analysis through a qualitative approach, this research study examined the development of second language acquisition of US immigrants via the mass media as a part of the acculturation process. Nine international students (or international spouses of students) of a major midwestern university participated in 25-60 minute interviews. Based on participant responses, the author formulated the mediated language acquisition process, or the process by which the participants acquired English as an additional language with the help of the mass media. Additionally, motivation was found to be the primary indicator of the rate of language acquisition. …

Deliberate Practice In Professional Speaking Expertise, Helen Lie

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore expertise development in professional speaking from the perspective of deliberate practice. A convenience sample of 10 elite and 12 experienced professional members of the National Speakers Association participated in 30-60 minute phone interviews in which they described behaviors and activities that contributed to their skill development in speaking and what factors motivated them to pursue excellence in their craft. The group of elite subjects averaged 62.9 years of age (SD = 8.03) and 34.9 years (SD = 7.78) of professional speaking experience. The experienced group had an average age of 53.3 years …

Attraction And Motivation Of Millennial Generation Volunteers By Nonprofit Organizations, Yuliya Shkuro

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Attracting and motivating volunteers, especially younger generation volunteers, is a critical but not easy task for leaders in nonprofit sector. This paper examines what factors have been found to motivate Generation Y to volunteer in nonprofit organizations. Furthermore, the paper focuses on examining literature pertaining to help nonprofit organizations gain information about attraction and retention of younger volunteers. The trends learned from literature review have shown that Millennial volunteers are most likely to volunteer when they want to self-improve (professionally, academically), learn new skills, help disadvantaged, develop identity through association with nonprofit organization, socialize, meet new friends, and establish social …

When The Saints Go Marching In: An Ethnography Of Volunteer Tourism In Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Jennifer Lea Erdely

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This original study examines a new phenomenon in New Orleans tourism. Since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August 2005, droves of individuals and groups have come to New Orleans to help rebuild the city. Through conducting fifty interviews with these individuals from 2008-2009, the author traces the steps of volunteer tourists in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. This study investigates the experiences of volunteer tourists. Additionally, the author immersed herself with volunteer tourism groups to experience volunteering and the groups herself. Through careful inspection of original interviews with volunteer tourists, the author discovers how the volunteer tourists contribute to the city …

Antecedents Of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study, Curtis D. Beck

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the antecedents of servant leadership. The sequential explanatory research design consisted of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative. The Phase One quantitative survey collected data from 499 leaders and 630 raters from community leadership programs in the United States using the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). During Phase Two, selected leaders from phase one (N = 12) were interviewed to explain those results in more depth. The data were coded and analyzed for possible themes. Triangulation was used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data to validate …

Central Coast Wrestling Clinics, Chase Pami

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

User Motivation: Likability And Usability Of An Agricultural Web Site, Vishal Singh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

Web communications has become a critical component of mass communications and media today. Web sites must be user-friendly if they are to communicate effectively. This study examines the relationship between user motivation and the likability and usability of web sites. Web designers, stakeholders, and web site owners need to pay close attention to the likability and usability of a web site since these are key components of its credibility.

A key finding of this study indicates there is not a direct relationship between likability of a web site and its usability. Often, web designers and web site owners judge web …

Effects Of Instructor Immediacy And Student Need For Cognition On Student Motivation And Perceptions Of Learning, Sabrina Kalish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study built on previous literature linking instructor immediacy, student motivation, and student learning. The purpose of this research was to examine main and interaction effects of instructor immediacy and student trait motivation on student state motivation and cognitive learning. A main effect of instructor nonverbal immediacy on student state motivation and cognitive learning was found to be statistically significant. Further exploratory research did not yield statistical significance for a main effect of trait motivation, as measured by need for cognition, on student state motivation and cognitive learning, nor an interaction effect of immediacy and trait motivation on both state …

When Shakespeare Meets Al Gore: Imagine Interactions, Communication Competence, And Immediacy Traditional And Online-Based Distance Education, Tammy L. Croghan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The growth of distance education, in its many forms, has had consequences for both online universities as well as more traditional universities. This study examines instructional behaviors and communication strategies used in face-to-face and online educational settings. The purpose of this study is to explore student perceptions of instructor immediacy, motivation, and communicator competence in addition to their own motivation and intrapersonal communication use in higher education settings. This dissertation follows a social scientific organizational pattern: introduction, literature review, methods, results, and discussion. The first two chapters examine the purpose of the study and the appropriate research on distance education, …