Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons^™

Sexual Self-Concept, Communication Privacy Management, & Relational Dialetcics Among Post-Partum Women, Mary Pitts

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sexual communication research has long focused on adolescents, though a growing area in need of focus revolves around sexual confidence and view of self, or sexual self-concept. Similarly, research on motherhood often lacks a deep view into postpartum women’s feelings and experiences and how they communicate about them with other people. Relational Dialectics Theory and Communication Privacy Management were used to evaluate how postpartum women experiences changes in their sexual self-concept and how they subsequently communicate about those changes with other people. Through interviewing 10 women through semi-structured interviews surrounding their experiences with sexual self-concept and motherhood, themes connecting open …

“If I Am Going To Have To Force You To Talk About It With Me, Then I’M Not Going To”: Relational Dialectics In Transracial Asian Adoptees’ Conversations About Race, Brooke Hornberger

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Transracial adoptive families often encounter various struggles around race as they acknowledge the challenges of racial dissimilarity in their family structure. This thesis, grounded in the theoretical framework of Relational Dialectics Theory, explored the competing discourses around the conversation of race for adult Asian adoptees. The results from 35 semi-structured interviews and contrapuntal analysis revealed one dialectical tension highlighting the Asian adoptee’s role in maintaining conversations of race with their White adoptive parents. Some adoptees voiced the discourse of taking the opportunity to be the advocate, while others voiced the discourse of feeling frustrated with being the advocate. The results …

Smells Like Team Spirit: How To Foster Psychological Safety And Enhance Team Creativity, Shannon S. Burrows

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Creativity is one of the most sought-after skills of the 21^st century, yet team members may be reticent to contribute to creative problem-solving out of fear of ridicule, retribution, or because of rigid hierarchical team structures. However, psychological safety is the underpinning of creativity; without it a culture of silence prevails, mistakes go unreported, and team creativity languishes. But how do leaders cultivate psychological safety in their teams? This project seeks to answer that question. Although the term “psychological safety” has become common in the corporate lexicon, misconceptions abound. Through the creation of a short, animated video, this project …

Student Relational Maintenance With Instructors: Scale Development And Validation, Emily N. Napier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined the instructor-student relationship through an interpersonal communication perspective. The current thesis took a two-step process to first derive participant-generated responses concerning undergraduate student maintenance behaviors and second to construct and validate a scale concerning those behaviors. Of additional interest was to explore reasons as to why students aim to maintain these relationships. A 16-item measure titled the Student Relational Maintenance Scale was created and consists of making connections, advice seeking, etiquette, and attendance behaviors. Additionally, results revealed that both professional and personal reasons motivated students to build these relationships. Making connections, advice seeking, etiquette, and attendance behaviors …

The Influence Of Break-Ups On Subsequent Romantic Relationship Conflict Strategies Among College Students, Mattelyn Garza

All Theses

This study examined past romantic relationship partner break-up strategies (OPBS) and their influence on subsequent romantic relationship conflict strategies (SRCS) through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT). According to SCT, observed behaviors are modeled by individuals through the mechanisms of attention, retention, motivational process and production. Past research supports the idea that romantic relationship partners and break-ups are likely to be considered important and memorable to an individual, however research has not yet investigated if romantic relationship break-ups could incite observational learning. Break-up strategies and conflict strategies have been conceptualized and evaluated very similarly by past research. Therefore, it …

Intellectual Humility And Diversity, Emmanuel Gutierrez

Undergraduate Research Symposium Lightning Talks

Intellectual humility has many positive effects which include enhanced perspectives, collaboration & reduced bias, and continued learning & adaptability. Using a personal narrative about the application of intellectual humility, 3 goals will be possible: bringing awareness, increasing collaboration, and encouraging diversity.

Growing Up And The Emotions That Come With It, Mckenzie J. Blanchard

ATU Scholars Symposium

Many people roll their eyes when asked to read a twenty-plus page article and pull out key facts. They also usually do not pull out relatable emotions, but only information. When reading, though, whether poems or short stories, people do not mind the task because they get much more out of it. They walk away with feelings – ones they know from previous, personal experience, and also new ones which relate to the writer’s own story.

My work is an examination of stories of my past that have shaped me into who I am today. The stories are told from …

Building Before: Community Resiliency As Emergency Management, Alexandria Rinne

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This project seeks to address gaps in emergency preparedness education related to tornado response. Through an examination of current research about best practices for tornado emergency management response and an examination of the needs of FEMA Regions 7 and 8, the author has identified key strategies and stakeholders to increase positive outcome through building community engagement and resiliency. Three presentations were created for delivery to key community stakeholders—local government officials; non-governmental organizations, social networks, and associations; and individual private citizens. The project offers an overview of background research and provides presentation slide decks, scripts, and discussion guides, all created with …

Effects Of Nurse-Patient Relationship On Medication Adherence Of Mental Health Patients, April Monica Magbual

Nursing | Student Research Posters

Medication adherence among mentally ill patients (MIP) is a significant issue in healthcare which require extra support & guidance to encourage better recovery. Administering medication is a critical role of nurses that must be performed effectively and appropriately. Employing a nurse-patient relationship (NPR) and nursing presence has been shown to create a positive outcome and an essential characteristic to improve medication adherence. However, there is insufficient research exploring NPR and medication adherence specifically for MIPs. Participants’ cultural variations, age range, specific interventions & economic factors influencing medication compliance are missing.

The Social Support Experiences Of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd) Adults, Lindsay A. Duede, Colter Ray

LSU Master's Theses

Social support researchers commonly recognize that support is most useful when it matches the needs and desires of those receiving it. Yet, the majority of research regarding attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and social support frames questions of communication competence by placing neurodiverse communities at odds with neurotypical ones. This practice reinforces a hierarchy in which neurotypical individuals are viewed as correct and deviations from that norm as failures. Individuals with ADHD experience emotions differently than those without it; thus, it stands to reason that people with ADHD could have different needs and desires for support. Therefore, this study has two key …

Enhancing Collaboration: Carolyn Tubbs Relies On Open Communication As Vice Provost, Nathaniel Miller, Leticia Romero

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Listening and understanding are important to work and collaboration; Vice Provost Carolyn Tubbs deems open communication vital to working with faculty and staff around the campus. In a previous role, she acted as an associate professor of marriage and family therapy, which requires strong communication and understanding. To foster an environment of success and collaboration, Tubbs finds these abilities as well as fostering the formation of faith to be vital for the mission of the university and its staff. Tubbs along with four other women serving as deans for the university are leading the way to advancing the university towards …

Communication Monographs Spring 2023 Newsletter, Martina Santia, Srividya Ramasubramanian

CODE^SHIFT Research

No abstract provided.

“Evolving Homes, Not Revolving Doors”: Examining Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Foster Parents’ Discursive Construction And Negotiation Of Identity Layers And Identity Gaps, Lucas Hackenburg

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The United States foster care system serves more than half a million children each year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHH], 2023). The purpose of this study was to examine how LGB foster parents discursively construct and navigate their identities in the fostering context. The researcher undertook in-depth interviews with 18 LGB people who were currently fostering or had previously fostered at least one child from the foster care system. The researcher analyzed the interview data using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis (2019).

Consistent with the Communication Theory of Identity (Hecht, 1993; 2015; Hecht & Phillips, 2022), …

Exploring The Link Between School Discipline And Restoring Relationships Using Restorative Conferences!, Derrick C. Bailey, Julia Bullock

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Participants will be able to identify the link between effective restorative conferences and school discipline. They will learn strategies that are effective for reactive and proactive conferences. Participants will analyze scenarios of actual conferences and prepare a list of things to avoid. Participants will learn how to use data to assess the effectiveness of their conferences and adjustments that may need to be made.

Let's Talk Body: An Applied Senior Project On Social Media Body Image, Katherine R. Tonges, Lindsey J. Dwyer

Communication Studies

This paper discusses the overwhelming presence of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok in the recent generation's (Gen-Z) daily lives. Influencers have become the new celebrities by creating a “relatable and desirable” lifestyle that users aspire to gain. However, the pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards and buy promoted products can lead to negative effects on users' mental health and self-esteem. The authors of this paper (Tonges and Dwyer) have created a podcast and Instagram account to encourage an honest conversation about the impact of social media on one’s actions, emotions, and brain chemistry. By analyzing social media …

Norms Of Public Argumentation And The Ideals Of Correctness And Participation, Frank Zenker, Jan Albert Van Laar, Bianca Cepollaro, Anca Gâță, Martin Hinton, Colin Guthrie King, Brian N. Larson, Marcin Lewinski, Christoph Lumer, Steve Oswald, Maciej Pichlak, Blake D. Scott, Mariusz Urbanski, Jean H.M. Wagemans

Faculty Scholarship

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. …

Call For Manuscripts For Volume 36, Angela Hosek

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Preparing Graduate Students For A Dei-Framed Basic Course: A Graduate Student Perspective, Adam E. Tristan

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Creating Equitable And Inclusive Basic Course Classrooms: A Response Essay, Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post

Basic Communication Course Annual

In 1992, Jo Sprague challenged communication educators to think more critically about how we teach and what we include in our communication curriculum. In the decades since Sprague’s powerful call for instructional communication researchers and instructors to ask ourselves, “What is knowledge and how is curriculum established?” (p. 11), we find ourselves needing to engage with ongoing contemporary conversations about what counts as knowledge in a basic communication course and which knowledge is viewed as important enough to include in the curriculum. A meta-synthesis of basic communication course surveys showed little change in the basic communication course content over the …

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy: Promoting Inclusivity In The Basic Course, Tim Mckenna-Buchanan, Kristen L. Farris

Basic Communication Course Annual

The goal of trauma-informed pedagogy is to understand how trauma impacts how our students learn. As such, basic communication course (BCC) instructors need to better understand trauma-informed pedagogy as a means of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. The BCC curriculum often requires a level of vulnerability among our student body, therefore instructors need to become aware of practices to build trust and create community. Three ideas are outlined to showcase trauma-informed pedagogy in the BCC; (1) promoting well-being, (2) developing transparency, (3) fostering growth.