Trends in Organizational Communication Research: Sustaining the Discipline,Sustaining Ourselves

This paper began as a keynote address delivered at the 16th annual Organizational Communication Mini‐Conference hosted by Western Michigan University. In it, I identify topical trends in organizational communication research, noting ways in which these trends are flexible, enduring, diverse, and problem‐centered. I go on to invite current doctoral students to join us in developing these trends further. Specifically, I discuss how we might engage research in ways that sustain the vitality of the discipline as well as our own personal vitality. I conclude by offering a list of key articles that could serve as starting points in the on‐going conversation centered around organizational communication.     

Dimensional analyses of complex data

In this article, scales constructed using principal components and Rasch measurement methods are compared. The context of the comparison is scale definition under difficult circumstances—when constructs are unclear and sample sizes marginal. Three data sets of increasing complexity and decreasing stability were used. Responses for the least complex data set were dichotomous; the remaining two were polytomous. Results of Rasch and principal components analyses were identical when data were stable and the structure unidimensional. With less stability and more complexity, the defined scales were still similar for the two analytic approaches. Effects of item positions on the scales were noted and are discussed.     

Rapid Naming Components and Their Relationship With Phonological Awareness,Orthographic Knowledge,Speed of Processing,and Different Reading Outcomes

This study examines (a) how rapid automatized naming (RAN) speed components—articulation time and pause time—predict reading accuracy and reading fluency in Grades 2 and 3, and (b) how RAN components are related to measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and speed of processing. Forty-eight children were administered RAN tasks in Grades 1, 2, and 3. Results indicated that pause time was highly correlated with both reading accuracy and reading fluency measures and shared more of its predictive variance with orthographic knowledge than with phonological awareness or speed of processing. In contrast, articulation time was only weakly correlated with the reading measures and was rather independent from any processing skill at any point of measurement.     

Assessing Beliefs of Preservice Early Childhood Education Teachers Using Q-Sort Methodology

The purpose of this study was to assess the beliefs of students and faculty in a 4-year birth–kindergarten teacher preparation program using the Teacher Belief Q-Sort (TBQ). Data were collected over one academic year from a total of 63 students, 35 students at the beginning of their coursework and 28 students at the end of their program, completing their student teaching experience. The faculty (n = 8) in the program completed the TBQ to provide a criterion sort as well as to assess the consistency in philosophy across faculty members who teach preservice teachers. Compilations of rankings are presented to describe beliefs related to children, discipline, and teaching practices held by students who are at different points in their education program. Criterion comparison results indicate that student teachers at the end of their education program report beliefs more similar to faculty beliefs than students at the beginning of their education program. However, findings suggest that the student teaching experience does not appear to significantly alter beliefs about children, discipline and teaching practices. These results are discussed in terms of child-directed versus teacher-directed styles of preservice teachers and implications of assessing beliefs for teacher preparation programs.     

Find Your Manners: How Do Infants Detect the Invariant Manner of Motion in Dynamic Events?

To learn motion verbs, infants must be sensitive to the specific event features lexicalized in their language. One event feature important for the acquisition of English motion verbs is the manner of motion. This article examines when and how infants detect manners of motion across variations in the figure's path. Experiment 1 shows that 13- to 15-month-olds (N = 30) can detect an invariant manner of motion when the figure's path changes. Experiment 2 reveals that reducing the complexity of the events, by dampening the figure's path, helps 10- to 12-month-olds (N = 19) detect the invariant manner. These findings suggest that: (a) infants notice event features lexicalized in English motion verbs, and (b) attention to manner can be promoted by reducing event complexity.     

Engaging whiteness: How racial power gets reified in education

The central question addressed in this essay is how students engage in a class that focuses on the political and social power of whiteness. Specifically, it looks at how whiteness gets inscribed and reified in our education practices, even as we try to disrupt its normative influence. The essay is based upon an in-depth qualitative study of a graduate seminar dedicated to addressing diversity issues critically. We conclude that despite students' expressed intentions and efforts at disrupting whiteness, they draw upon a variety of discourses that actually serve to protect and secure whiteness's dominant position. Twelve different discourses that students cite are described, grouped into four broad appeals: to self, to progress, to authenticity, and to extremes. Understanding how students invoke these discourses as an implicit way of resisting critical engagements with whiteness can help us to problematize these practices as well as cultivate more productive and enabling interactions.     

Reluctant Respondents

The purpose of this study was to assess differences in demographic variables, mean attitude score, reliability of response, variability of response, and level of item completion among respondents to an initial survey mailing, to the first follow-up, to the second follow-up, and to a telephone interview. The survey requested information regarding classroom teachers’ use of research and attitudes toward research. Subjects were 600 inservice teachers from Wyoming and Nebraska. The final response rate to the mail questionnaire was 71.2%; 25 nonrespondents were interviewed by telephone. Results suggest that small differences exist across waves, with reluctant respondents having less positive attitudes toward the topic and less favorable views of themselves as researchers and teachers.     

Institutional Obligations in the Athletic Retirement Process

The power-dependency relationship that exists in the athletic context is exarnined relative to the obligations the establishment / institution has both during the athlete's playing days and in preparing the athlete to retire from high level competition and assume a nonathletic career. A deontological plurality of obligations for the athletic establishment is outlined. Autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence are examined as the specific moral imperatives necessary for the institution to aid in the development of human and not just athletic resources through the athletic medium. Specific strategies that could enhance the commitment of athletics to developing the life-skills and attitudes necessary for the athlete's transition to the after-sport life are also discussed.     

Haunting Argentina: Synecdoche in the protests of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Since April, 1977, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires have marched every Thursday at 3:30, demanding information about their disappeared children. In this essay, we analyze the protests of the Mothers by means of the metaphor of haunting and suggest that their symbols‐diapers as kerchiefs, slogans and sayings, circling the plaza, and marches‐enact a haunting by means of synecdoche. Synecdoche allows the Mothers to manage the trauma of the disappeared but is less effective at generating ways for Argentina to move out of the limbo of the disappearances.     

Infant Categorization of Path Relations During Dynamic Events

Fundamental to amassing a lexicon of relational terms (i.e., verbs, prepositions) is the ability to abstract and categorize spatial relations such as a figure (e.g., boy) moving along a path (e.g., around the barn). Three studies examine how infants learn to categorize path over changes in manner, or how an action is performed (e.g., running vs. crawling). Experiment 1 (n = 60) finds that 10‐ to 12‐month‐old English‐learning infants categorize a figure’s path. In Experiment 2 (n = 27) categorization is disrupted when the ground object is removed, suggesting the relation between figure and ground defines the path. Experiment 3 (n = 24) shows that language may be a mechanism guiding category formation. These studies suggest that English‐learning infants can categorize path, a component lexicalized in the world’s languages.