Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons^™

A Checklist For Mortals: Preparing For Death’S Arrival, Becky Daniel

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

We learn everything from our parents—how to walk, talk and treat potential life partners. Yet our culture in the United States makes it difficult to talk to our parents about death and those consequences have a real impact. Closing a loved one’s estate can stretch from months to years without proper planning. While death is constant, the death industry is not. It is ever changing. And while all lives have equal value, there are many preparations that one person may need (veteran, parent, lotto winner) while another does not. The best way to prepare for death is to know its …

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review Fall 2017

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Nonverbal Communication And Patient Willingness To Comply In Framed, Low-Risk Medical Settings, Rachael A. Katz

Communication Studies

This study discusses framing and communication tactics in the medical field. It specifically aims to understand whether expertise and empathetic nonverbal communication impacts patient willingness to comply with physician directives in gain- and loss-framed medical settings. Framing has been studied in many settings, including medical situations, and has been found to impact decision-making. This experiment utilizes college-aged individuals to examine Meningitis, a disease where the most at-risk group is college aged young adults. Participants were exposed to one of six conditions to examine whether perceived expertise/empathy in their scenario impacted willingness to comply with the doctor directives. Although no mediation …

Exploring Strategies For Teaching Creatively Online, Conny Van Der Wouw

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The way we learn and teach is changing. There is more emphasis on collaboration and personalization of the learning. Teaching online is becoming common. For my Master’s project I have developed a product that will help designing and delivering teaching programs creatively through the use of online learning opportunities. The product discusses the opportunities and challenges of a creative climate when teaching online and provides strategies to develop creativity during the online learning process. It is developed with the use of the Torrance Incubation Model of Teaching and Learning (TIM) and Ekvall’s ten dimensions of a creative climate. This paper …

Interns Matter: Maximizing Integration Of Interns Into Community Agencies, Valerie Garcia

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Hope Services is a non-profit agency serving individuals with developmental disabilities in six counties. Over the years, there have been many agencies that have formed connections with Hope Services. One of these collaborative partnerships has been with CSU Monterey Bay’s (CSUMB) integration of interns through their field placement program. However, recently former Hope Services South District Manager, Greg Dinsmore, witnessed a lack of utilization and integration of interns across all Hope Services agencies. Through firsthand experience as a mentor, he witnessed the benefits of utilizing interns and saw the need for further advocacy and support for the integration of interns …

Innovation In Ill-Structured Decision-Making By Teams: Contributions Of What Members Say And Don’T Say And How They Are Related, Steven D. Silver

Faculty Publications

The contributions of both types of information that are exchanged and coaction in silence to innovation objectives of decision-making teams are considered. Ideation and idea generation are recognized as critical to innovation in decisions that are ill structured. We focus on coaction in silence and the conditions in interaction that are likely to facilitate idea generation. Integration of ideas and evaluations that are likely to contribute most to the quality of decisions are given explicit forms. Major contentions of the account are examined in experimental data.

The Role Of Argumentation In Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning During Problem-Based Learning In Medical Education: A Conceptual Framework, Hyunjung Ju, Ikseon Choi

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

One of the important goals of problem-based learning (PBL) in medical education is to enhance medical students’ clinical reasoning—hypothetico-deductive reasoning (HDR) in particular—through small group discussions. However, few studies have focused on explicit strategies for promoting students’ HDR during group discussions in PBL. This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that integrates Toulmin’s argumentation model (1958) into Barrows’s HDR process (1994). This framework explains the structure of argumentation (a claim, data, and a warrant) contextualized in each phase of HDR during PBL. This paper suggests four instructional strategies—understanding argument structures, questioning, elaborating on structural knowledge, and assessing argumentation—for promoting medical …

It's More Than Self-Presentation: Mum Effects Can Reflect Private Discomfort And Concern For The Recipient, Jayson L. Dibble

Faculty Publications

Is the reluctance to share bad news (i.e., the MUM effect) motivated more by a public display or private concern, and does it benefit mainly the messenger or the recipient? An experiment (N = 309) that crossed good/bad news with three communication channels (face to face, text messaging, email) revealed that messenger reluctance was greatest under conditions of bad news and did not vary based on channel through which the recipient contacted the messenger. In contrast with earlier work, this MUM effect was more consistent with a private fear of distressing the recipient. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed.

Safe, Patricia Lent

Occasional Paper Series

The first four sections of this essay chronicle her attempts to make sense of September 11 in the succeeding weeks and months. The final section—”Corn, Beans, and Squash”—was written to and for her students at the end of the school year.

Finding Meaning In The Resistance Of Preschool Children: Critical Theory Takes An Interpretive Look, Steven Schultz

Occasional Paper Series

Offers an analysis to resistant behavior of preschool children that goes beyond lack of socialization. This interpretation focuses upon the social and cultural meanings of individual and group behaviors. The article is concerned with the acts of the children that run contrary to, or simply outside of, the sanctioned school activities. This is an important vantage from which to analyze preschool resistance because some important behaviors can be identified at the point when they are first likely to occur; when young children, as members of a peer group, first meet figures of authority.

The American Pickers Demonstrates Communication Skills, Jeffrey Brand

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity prepares students to identify persuasive communication practices in non-classroom environments and to view reality-based television programs as a learning platform for understanding communication theories and concepts. Using selected scenes or an entire episode from a popular reality-television program, American Pickers, students can observe how Mike and Frank establish a rapport with new customers, get to know them and their stories, negotiate sales, interact with each other as a team, and leave with a new relationship (client) and connection intact. The purpose of this exercise is to help students observe these initial contacts and relationships as they develop on …

Developing A Supportive Communication Climate For Virtual Task Groups, Brent Kice

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This class activity places students in virtual teams to assess Gibb’s (1961) defensive or supportive behaviors as a means of reinforcing trust among virtual task-group members. A worksheet offering a fictitious online chat transcript is provided for group analysis; student directions for creating unique team names are also given. This activity helps students to establish positive climates for virtual task groups.

Simulated Creative Collaboration: Experiencing Challenges To Innovative Virtual Teaming In The Classroom, Brian C. Britt, Kristen Hatten

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity provides students with in-depth experience working as part of an innovative virtual team, which will enable them to better understand the relative advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to creative collaboration in different contexts. Participants are divided into groups, which must then solve an assigned problem using a specified communication technology and creative process from the literature. The instructor will introduce a variety of obstacles to communication using each technology, which may inhibit students’ creative processes. Following the activity, the class will discuss these challenges, participants’ responses, and the range of experiences with different collaborative processes and technologies.

Using Social Lubricants To Increase Conversationality, Nathaniel Simmons

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Responding to the epidemic of the dying art of conversation (Asha, 2014; Barnwell, 2014 April), this activity constructs a space in which students tap into social lubricants as a conversational, artistic tool to increase conversational skills. Inspired by Monahan & Lannutti’s (2000) social lubricant work, this study views social lubricants— any object or action that facilitates social interaction, such as a dog or a compliment— as a vital resource that merits pedagogical attention. After completing a role-play in which students tap into a social lubricant to achieve an assigned goal, students will be able to: (a) define social lubricants; (b) …

Social Justice Storytelling: Giving Our Students More Than Just An Education In Speech, Phillip E. Wagner

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

In an effort to highlight the practical and relevant applications of public speaking, this activity was designed to give students a safe space to discuss current social justice issues. Beginning with an open-ended narrative prompt, this activity requires students to take turns building upon a social justice narrative, giving them an opportunity to practice confident delivery and healthy dissent while also further enhancing public speaking skills and fostering a social-justice orientation.

Improving Interviewing And Conversational Skills Using "Speed Interviewing", Colleen Arendt

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

A great deal of research focuses on the importance of effective interviewing skills across professions and interpersonal settings. This activity, based on “speed dating,” is designed to improve students’ interviewing skills. Specifically, the activity develops listening and probing skills by having students conduct mini interviews without preparation. The lack of preparation forces students to rely only on their listening and probing skills instead of an interview protocol. To increase difficulty, the questions can be tailored to employment or internship interviews to help the interviewees prepare while their partners practice listening and asking probing questions. This activity can also be modified …

"I Don't Always Look At Memes, But When I Do, It's For A Class": Using Memes To Demonstrate Language Rules, Jocelyn M. Degroot, Hannah Coy

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity uses Internet memes to demonstrate the pervasiveness of language rules and culture’s effect on language in online culture. Numerous introductory communication courses include a discussion on verbal communication that focuses on language rules and the effects of culture on verbal communication. The most relevant language rules for memes are the regulative rules that guide action and how we use language (Cronen, Pearce, & Harris, 1979). In this exercise, students analyze and evaluate language rules present in popular online memes. The students identify the language rule utilized in each of a pre-chosen set of Internet memes and generate at …

Facing Our Racial Biases Via The Implicit Association Test, Stacey A. Peterson

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Classroom discussions around race and difference are often difficult and challenging. We all come to our social interactions as products of our cultural selves, race being one of a myriad of multi-faceted characteristics. Therefore, while many feel that race is something that is discussed ad nauseam, others feel that such discussions rarely scratch the surface. This exercise uses the Implicit Association Test on race to encourage students to reflect upon and examine their hidden biases and address the role those biases play in potential communicative interactions, decisions, actions, and even emotions that they, the students, likely have of people of …

Grandmothers As Child Caregivers: A Unique Child Care Arrangement, Kathy L. Reschke, Susan K. Walker

Occasional Paper Series

This paper draws attention to grandmothers who provide child care and the parents and children they serve, by sharing the results of a study of a group of employed mothers from rural, low-income families who used grandmother care on a regular basis. Although their experiences cannot represent those of all mothers who use grandmother care, they are valuable in understanding the perspective of many women with few feasible options who depend on this type of care.

Critical Risk Assessment And Management In Pharmaceutical Industry, Abida Zameer

Dissertations and Theses

Background

Proper implementation of principles of project risk management is well known to minimize the impact of threats to any project. However, the determination of critical success factors which threat the success of pharmaceutical projects at baseline are usually uncertain.

Methods

Data was collected using self-administered structured questionnaire generated solely for the purpose of the current research. The questionnaire was administered via e-mail to professionals employed in the pharmaceutical industry located in Boston area using www.surveymonkey.com. The introduction and purpose of the questionnaire was described in the message accompanying the questionnaire.

Results:

Out of the 14 critical success factors listed …