The effects of dialect awareness instruction on nonmainstream American English speakers

The achievement gaps between poor and more affluent students are persistent and chronic, as many students living in poverty are also members of more isolated communities where dialects such as African American English and Southern Vernacular English are often spoken. Non-mainstream dialect use is associated with weaker literacy achievement. The principal aims of the two experiments described in this paper were to examine whether second through fourth graders, who use home English in contexts where more formal school English is expected, can be taught to dialect shift between home and school English depending on context; and whether this leads to stronger writing and literacy outcomes. The results of two randomized controlled trials with students within classrooms randomly assigned to DAWS (Dialect Awareness, a program to explicitly teach dialect shifting), editing instruction, or a business as usual group revealed (1) that DAWS was more effective in promoting dialect shifting than instruction that did not explicitly contrast home and school English; and (2) that students in both studies who participated in DAWS were significantly more likely to use school English in contexts where it was expected on proximal and distal outcomes including narrative writing, morphosyntactic awareness, and reading comprehension. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Student Predispositions as Predictors of Dissent Behaviors in Supply Chain Courses*

This study investigates how student dissent behaviors are affected by student predispositions (i.e., math anxiety and self‐efficacy) in supply chain related courses. The data support a model in which students’ vengeful dissent behaviors are indirectly induced by these predispositions through the mediation of perceived immediacy. It is critical for instructors to understand the relationship between these variables to help improve the classroom environment for students, which this study helps to accomplish. Instructors of quantitative courses may need to engage students with predispositions in communication outside of the classroom to foster effective relationship building away from an environment that triggers students’ anxiety.     

Pathways to Undergraduate Research Experiences: a Multi-Institutional Study

The positive impact of undergraduate research experiences on students’ post-secondary success is well-documented. However, these conclusions are drawn from undergraduate students who already participate; very little research has explored the pathways by which students enter these experiences. Using data from a multi-institutional survey, we examined students’ reasons for participating and differences across institutions and demographic groups. Overall, students cited social and experiential reasons as key motivators for participation and a perceived lack of research readiness as a key barrier. Differences were also found across academic year. Implications from this study address issues of access, preparation, and institutional policies around undergraduate research.     

Junior College Innovation and Teaching Improvement

Although interdisciplinary efforts in teaching and research are promoted as a possible antidote to increasing disciplinary separatism in colleges and universities, evaluations of interdisciplinary efforts in the classroom, particularly those spanning the traditional science-humanities divide, are not frequently documented. This article describes the development, execution, and assessment of a unique effort in interdisciplinary teaching in which four doctoral candidates from widely varying home disciplines collaborated to create and teach a “truly interdisciplinary” course for first-year students centered on the pervasiveness of humankind's quest for immortality. Assessment of the course indicates several desirable student outcomes, including the development of a more mature world view and appreciation for different epistemologies, which recommend the continuation of this and similar interdisciplinary efforts. While students at times found the enormous number of disciplines potentially related to the central topic overwhelming, at the conclusion of the course, they largely identified the exposure to new perspectives as an exciting and worthwhile academic experience. Similar interdisciplinary efforts in the classroom are encouraged, though ample course development time is recommended to maximize success.     

Religion and Science

The authors discuss the challenges of creating an integrated, interdisciplinary team-taught course. This case study focuses on conflict arising from interdependency, when interdisciplinary teams determine course content and negotiate identity, relationship, and process issues. Although no formulaic solutions can resolve such conflicts, the study makes suggestions that can help achieve integration and collaboration when disciplines join forces.     

Politeness theory and refusals of requests: Face threat as a function of expressed obstacles

This investigation seeks to extend Wilson, Aleman, and Leatham's (1998) revision of Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory by focusing on the relationship between face threat and refusals to requests. Results support that (a) when requests are refused, threats to the negative face needs of the requester are more prevalent than threats to the negative face of the refuser and (b) depending on the obstacle underlying the refusal, there are differences in type of threat present to the requester's positive face and the refuser's face needs.     

Evolution and Diffusion of the Michigan State University Tradition of Organizational Communication Network Research

This article documents the 30‐year history of communication network research at Michigan State University (M.S.U.), providing a case study of the evolution and diffusion of an academic innovation. Three past and continuing issues for network scholars are identified: a lack of professional reward for developing user‐friendly computer programs, unresolved methodological problems, and a need for better theoretical and conceptual frameworks. The narrative also illustrates the difficulty communication as a discipline has in impacting broader intellectual traditions. The story begins with the first doctoral dissertation (Schwartz, 1968 Richards, W. D. and Barnett, G., eds. 1993. Progress in communication sciences: Advances in communication network analysis, Norwood, NJ: Ablex.  [Google Scholar]) and the first network analysis software program in 1970 (Richards’ Negopy), continuing to the last dissertation (Susskind, 1996 Susskind, A. M. 1996. The impact of an organizational downsizing effort on survivors’ communication network relationships and attitudes, East Lansing: Department of Communication, Michigan State University. Unpublished doctoral dissertation [Google Scholar]), and ending in 1998 when J. David Johnson left the M.S.U. faculty. Other major players in the M.S.U. network tradition included David K. Berlo, Eugene Jacobson, Everett M. Rogers, Vincent Farace, Peter Monge, and Erwin Bettinghaus. Ironically, Schwartz and Susskind met in 1998 while Schwartz was preparing to retire from Cornell University and Susskind was starting as an Assistant Professor in a different department, thus providing closure to the M.S.U. network.