Other Communication Commons^™

Making The Case For The Basic Communication Course In General Education, Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post

Basic Communication Course Annual

Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program.

In this essay, the authors discuss the academic, career, and social benefits stemming from strong effective communication skills.

Basic Course Forum: Section Introduction

Basic Communication Course Annual

Volume 30 highlights advocating for the basic course. Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program. The essays featured here provide strong arguments against such a move and, as you might expect, strongly defend the basic course.

Communication Apprehension: Understanding Communication Skills And Cultural Identity In The Basic Communication Course, Stevie M. Munz, Janet Colvin

Basic Communication Course Annual

Students enrolled in a basic communication course are required to self-examine their communication apprehension by means of the PRPSA (McCroskey 1970). The present study qualitatively examined pretest and posttest responses from 793 students enrolled in a basic communication course to assess their understanding of their communication apprehension. Our findings reveal that students articulate their communication apprehension in relationship to their public speaking skills (e.g., writing/outlining, audience analysis, and argumentation skills) and cultural identity (e.g., ESL, peer relationship, and religious identity). Our findings contribute to previous understanding of communication apprehension and are discussed in great detail alongside implications and future directions.

Conceptualizing Positive And Negative Experiences And Responses In The Basic Communication Course, Angela Hosek, Caroline Waldbuesser, Eric Mishne, Brandi Frisby

Basic Communication Course Annual

The present study used qualitative analysis of 259 students’ positive and negative experiences in the basic course and the ways in which they responded to these events. Students described four negative experiences: poor academic performance, time management, communication apprehension, and teacher driven challenges and four positive experiences: relational, growth, and presentation success. Students responded to these negative experiences using behavioral change, support seeking, doing nothing, and responded to positive experiences using emotive responses, communication with others, engaging in celebrating activities, applying skills, and lacking celebration.

“I Didn’T Even Think Of This”: Examining The Influence Of Student Disability Accommodation Training On Basic Course Instructors’ Attitudes And Self-Efficacy, Jillian A. Joyce

Basic Communication Course Annual

Despite the growing number of students with disabilities in the university setting, few resources are offered to teach instructors about specific disabilities or provide direction for how to accommodate these students. This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the influence of accommodation training on basic communication course graduate teaching assistants’ attitudes and self-efficacy regarding students with disabilities. The training used attribution theory as a lens to examine stuttering, a stigmatized disability that can uniquely affect the basic course classroom, and explore the logistical requirements for accommodating students in postsecondary education. This study used pretest and posttest data from …

Assessing Markers Of Student Development For Dually And Non-Dually Enrolled Students In An Online Basic Public Speaking Course, Joshua N. Westwick, Karla M. Hunter, Kelli J. Chromey

Basic Communication Course Annual

Critics of college dual enrollment programs suggest that online courses could pose significant challenges for dually enrolled students due to the online learning environment structure, concerns of academic achievement, and limited access to academic support. These concerns call into question the merits of online instruction for institutions who offer the basic public speaking course online to provide access to a broader base of students (e.g., in inner cities and rural areas). Dual enrollment continues to increase in popularity, especially within the general education curriculum, which includes the basic public speaking course at many institutions. Research shows these students excel academically, …

Engaging Students In The Basic Course By Asking Big Questions, Bryan Abendschein, Grace Giorgio, Adam D. Roth, Jennifer Bender

Basic Communication Course Annual

This paper advocates for the inclusion of big questions into the basic course curriculum. It begins by exploring the nature of big questions as those that engage pressing and perennial civic and global issues, and details their effectiveness in encouraging students and faculty to think about interpersonal responsibility and social space as dynamically interfacing and mutually reflexive, thus challenging us to negotiate the civic call of engaging in democratic processes. The basic course, whether public speaking or hybrid, offers a crucial opportunity for big questions to emerge because it brings people together to critically question and produce messages about the …

Teaching Talk: An Exploration Of The Content And Implementation Of The Common Core State Standards, Anna Wright, Brian Rohman, Dakota Horn, Barbara Meyer, Cheri J. Simonds

Basic Communication Course Annual

The implementation of the Common Core State Standards has brought about a renewed inspiration for exploring the role of communication in K-12 schools as they include a speaking and listening strand. Communication education in K-12 schools had been sparsely researched; however, a handful of scholars have made calls to increase the research and advocacy done in this arena. There is a need to understand the K-12 context as a means to inform practices at the college level. This study breaks down the speaking and listening strand of the standards to create a better understanding of the content addressed and applies …

Research Articles: Section Introduction

Basic Communication Course Annual

The Basic Communication Course Annual publishes the best scholarship available on topics related to the basic course and is distributed nationally to scholars and educators interested in the basic communication course. Each article is indexed in its entirety in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), an authoritative database of educational literature and resources. Essential for education researchers of all kinds, it features journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Manuscripts published in the Basic Communication Course Annual are not restricted to any particular methodology or approach. They address issues that are significant …

Editor's Page, Joseph P. Mazer

Basic Communication Course Annual

Publication of Volume 30 of the Basic Communication Course Annual marks 30 since the journal’s official launch. In those decades, the Annual has featured the best scholarship on topics pertaining to our discipline’s “bread-and-butter” course, “front porch” class, or whatever metaphor you would like to use to characterize the great work that happens here. Although 30 years have elapsed, our scholarship is more important now than ever before; it is mission-critical to our country and our democracy.

As we know, the basic communication course equips students with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed as communicatively competent citizens prepared to …

Front Cover, Title Page, Contents, Editorial Board

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Interviewing To Understand Strengths, Michael R. Hass

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Interviewing clients about their strengths is an important part of developing a complete understanding of their lives and has several advantages over simply focusing on problems and pathology. Prerequisites for skillfully interviewing for strengths include the communication skills that emerge from a stance of not knowing, developing a vocabulary of strengths that allows practitioners to identify and name them, and having a “ear for strengths.” Building on this, Saleebey (2008) offers a framework of eight types of questions that allow us to explore strengths in depth with clients.

Dimensions Of Online/Offline Social Communication: An Extension Of The Hyperpersonal Model, Devin Joseph Kelly

ETD Archive

With the rise of technology it becomes important to measure and analyze the communication patterns that are emerging from these changes. Technologies open up different communication patterns for individuals to use (Tomas & Carlson 2015; Walther, 1996; Wei & Leung, 1999). Thus, this study develops the “ASOHIO” perspective, which incorporates a range of new and old communication patterns, online communication, offline communication, synchronous communication, asynchronous communication, interpersonal communication, and hyperpersonal communication. This work also looks to extend the hyperpersonal model greatly by developing an actual multi-item scale to measure the construct at the individual level. Walther’s (1996) basic description of …

Discourse Networks Of Emergency Response Communication: A Case Study Of Civilian Deliberation On The Reddit Platform, Cody Blake Wilson, Megan Kendall

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Using discourse and network analysis, this research explores a reddit thread concerning an emergency situation in the U.S.V.I. after a 2017 hurricane. In particular, research seeks to gain greater understanding of deliberation and problem-solving behaviour of a crowdsourced, citizen group in response to a disaster. Findings support the use of network analysis and measures of centrality to isolate particularly important actors and contributions in a network. Furthermore, findings also depict seven archetypical roles played by users in the discourse. Further research is needed to understand how the tier structure of the reddit platform influences network structure and behaviour and normalize …

The Wounded Man: Foxcatcher And The Incoherence Of White Masculine Victimhood, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

American cinema has recently favored representations of white men as victims of socioeconomic and political change. Recent scholarship on white masculinity suggests that representations of male victimhood enable white men to disavow that hegemonic white masculinity still fundamentally structures society. This essay argues that Hollywood’s wounded man similarly provides white masculinity with stable footing. I illustrate how the unintelligibility of screen masculinity evades criticism and, further, how melancholic male dramas nurture a traumatic attachment to victimhood. Examining the film Foxcatcher (2014), I show how unmasked portraits of white male victimhood function as counterparts to the hard-bodied action hero. The filmmaker’s …

The Influence Of Family Communication Styles On Campus Experience In College-Aged Children, Madison Kjosa

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As an environment, the modern university setting is diverse and subject students to numerous challenges and opportunities that prepare them to enter careers, build families, and grow as an individual. Yet what a student experiences in college differs greatly and is shaped by internal and external factors in their environment, including campus participation, college self-efficacy, depression and stress. Prior research indicates the impact of family on how a student expresses each of these variables (Schmidtgall, King, Zarski & Cooper, 2000; Bradbury & Mather, 2009; Hannum & Dvorak, 2004; Kenny & Donaldson, 1991; Lopez et al, 2001; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2006). …

The Phenomenon Of Rome: On Roads, Refugees, And Teilhard De Chardin, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of creation as an evolutionary process is used as a lens for studying Roman roads and refugees. A shorter version of this essay was published in Seton Hall University 2018 Core Trip, pages 28-33. This draft has been submitted for potential publication in Writing Rome: A Spiritual Journey, Kelly Shea ed.

Mutual Gaze Among Strangers, Allie Vaknin

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reactions people experienced when engaged in extended eye contact with a stranger. Artist Marina Abramović and an organization entitled The Liberators International have demonstrated a spectrum of reactions, many emotionally-charged, that have occurred from the opportunity to sit across from and gaze into the eyes of a stranger. Current research on eye contact has been predominantly quantitative, with no available research that qualitatively investigates the scenario in focus. The design of this study involved interviewing 35 people who participated in "The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment," where individuals paired with a …

College Males' Attitudes Toward Sexually-Explicit Material: An Experimental Study, Cody Schulte

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Sexually explicit materials (SEM) are an ever-growing presence in our society. The ramifications of these types of images and videos have been studied in depth, and the field is still researching whether these materials have harmful effects to individuals who view them or not. Regardless of these findings, sexually explicit videos are used in educational and therapeutic settings with an educational intent behind the usage. While these materials are being used there is little, to no, data on the attitudes that the clients or participants viewing these videos hold. This study will examine the attitudes that collegiate males hold towards …

Debris, Diatoms, And Dolphins: Tracking Child Engagement At A Public Science Festival, Kaya Van Beynen, Theresa G. Burress

USF St. Petersburg Campus Faculty Publications

Visitors to public science festivals have a tremendous amount of free choice to decide how to navigate through the festival, as well as when, where, and how long to stop at an exhibit. This study examines how elementary-aged children individually or collaboratively engaged with festival exhibits at a public science festival in St. Petersburg, Florida. Although many exhibit activities are designed to appeal to children, no research has been done with regard to child engagement with one-day, outdoor science festivals, such as this one. Engagement can be measured by unobtrusive observation of the behavior and interactions of children. Factors that …