The impact of communication apprehension on college student retention and success

Communication apprehension is conceptualized as a causal agent in student success. It is implicated in both academic and interpersonal success, two factors identified by prior resesarch as primary predictors of persistence. A four year longitudinal study of the impact of communication apprehension on grade point average and persistence at the university level was conducted. Results indicated high CA students were significantly more likely to drop out and attain lower grade point averages compared to low CA students. The impact of CA was strongest during the first two years. A replication of the study confirmed the impact of CA on student persistence. It is concluded the impact of CA on the probablity of high CA students’ survival in college is substantial and this impact adds to the case favoring the provision of training programs to assist such students overcome their apprehension about communication.     

Antisocial classroom communication: Instructor influence and interactional justice as predictors of student aggression

The present study investigated potentially destructive instructor and student communication. In particular, it examined the relationships between instructor use of antisocial behavior alteration techniques (BATs), student perceptions of instructor interactional justice, and students' likelihood of indirectly aggressing against their instructors. Results indicate that student perceptions of instructors' use of antisocial BATs and instructor interactional injustice predicted increased student indirect aggression. In addition, student perceptions of instructor antisocial BAT use and interactional justice were negatively correlated and interactional justice was a stronger predictor of student indirect aggression than was instructor antisocial BAT use.     

Integrating health communication pedagogy,social science,and health interventions

Three studies exemplify how health communication research concepts can be integrated pedagogically with health interventions in undergraduate courses. The academic structure for creating and conducting applied community health communication research using current theoretical frameworks is explained. Three empirical projects, increasing community seatbelt use, examining conscientiousness and campus safety behaviors, and increasing cervical cancer screening among college women, are described in detail. Student outcomes for the class demonstrate high learning and satisfaction.

Suggestions for future interventions integrated with general health communication classes are explored. But the overarching outcome is that even with low financial resource significant change can be achieved in health related outcomes, while simultaneously introducing students to health communication and social science procedures.     

Speech education ‐ ways and means of political education in Germany

This study of the utility of evidence differs from previous studies in its use of a respondent‐generated matrix of information and sources. This matrix comprised three dimensions (expertness × trustworthiness‐acquaintanceship x information type] and was used to produce Q‐statements which subjects sorted according to a most useful‐Jeast useful criterion in three hypothetical decision‐making situations. The Q‐analysis revealed several types of persons, including: types which found directive information most useful, types which preferred unknown but competent sources, and types which depended upon sources who were known and trusted regardless of the kind of information the source offered.     

S(he) loves me,s(he) loves me not: Predictors of relational information‐seeking in courtship and beyond

This study extends Baxter and Wilmot's (1984) work on the secret tests couples use to acquire information about the state of their relationships. No gender differences were found in levels of testing or in the use of specific tests in our sample of 226 romantically‐involved individuals, who reported on 1025 instances of testing. The effects of commitment, perceptions of partner's commitment, courtship progress, and jealousy on testing were also examined. Overall amount of testing was inversely correlated with courtship progress, suggesting that such tests characterize the earliest stages of courtship, and positively correlated with jealousy. In addition, females who perceived that their partners were less committed to their relationships were slightly more likely to engage in relational information‐seeking. Reliance upon specific tests was associated with several of the relationship measures. For instance, Endurance tests were best predicted by perceptions of high partner commitment; Separation tests were used when commitment by self and partner was low, when the relationship had not advanced much, and when the information‐seeker was jealous; and use of Triangle tests was associated with jealousy. Several significant contingencies were found among dimensions of the testing situation. The type of test used was associated with what respondents learned about their partners' commitment, with the probability of engaging in state‐of‐the relationship talks, and with the deliberate versus accidental nature of the testing episode. It was also found that deliberate tests were more likely than accidental ones to lead to feelings that the future course of the relationship was predictable and to open communication about the relationship. Finally, tentative support was found for a confirmatory bias in testing in which testers set themselves up to learn that their partners value the relationship.     

Envisioning a critical social pedagogy of learning and work in a contemporary culture of cyclical lifelong learning

In Canada, current federal learning-and-work policy is focused on individual learner-worker development using an iteration of lifelong learning as cyclical. This policy aims to enhance the social as an effect of enhancing the economic. In this neoliberal milieu, cyclical lifelong learning has become not only a norm but also a culture and an attitude. Still, a current Canadian phenomenon indicates that increasing numbers of young adults are disengaging from participation in such learning that the federal government considers being a preventive measure. In discussing their withdrawal from what might be perceived as cyclical lifelong learning for control, I consider a particularly challenging case: the predicament of young adults in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. To help us think about adequately addressing the dislocation they experience in life and work, I offer a Freire-informed vision of a critical social pedagogy of learning and work. This pedagogy calls for re-engendering the social in lifelong learning by revitalizing critical social concerns with historical awareness, hope, possibility, ethics, justice, democratic vision, learner freedom, critique, and intervention.     

Meta-Analysis of Meta-Analyses in Communication: Comparing Fixed Effects and Random Effects Analysis Models

Thirty-nine meta-analyses obtained from the past 10 years of communication research (1997–2007) were reanalyzed using fixed effects (FE), random effects (RE), and Hunter and Schmidt (HS) meta-analytic methods. The majority of studies (62%) reported use of the HS model in the original analysis. Differences identified between models include (a) greater propensity for Type 1 error under the FE approach, (b) episodes of inflated effect size (ES) under the RE approach, and (c) high levels of heterogeneity in population ESs across studies. Recommendations are made for scholars to appropriately choose and implement meta-analytic models in future research.     

Memorizar es conocer,un estudio sobre la influencia de la información previa en las tareas de recuerdo

Resumen

Esta investigación trata, en líneas generales, sobre los factores que influyen en el desarrollo de ta memoria. En ella se enfatiza el papel del conocimiento previo del sujeto, frente al de las estrategias mnemónicas deliberadas, como responsable del incremento del nivel de recuerdo en los niños de E.G.B. Este trabajo es congruente con la Teoría de los Niveles de Procesamiento de la Información propuesta por Craik y Lockart (1972) y revisada por Craik y Tulving (1975). En el experimento se demuestra que aquellos niños a los que se les da una información previa congruente con la información a recordar obtienen mejores resultados mnésicos que aquellos que carecen de ella. Por último se hace una serie de consideraciones pedagógicas basadas en los resultados obtenidos en el experimento.     

La expresión facial en los ciegos congénitos

Resumen

El presente informe analiza la expresión emocional de los ciegos congénitos mediante una codificación muscular de los movimientos faciales. Esta expresión, de carácter más involuntario, es semejante a la de los videntes. En cambio, los sujetos invidentes tienen una expresividad menor y menos diferenciada en las poses voluntarias. Los resultados, que confirman los hallazgos de autores anteriores, apoyan la existencia de dos fuentes de información en el desarrollo emocional: una de naturaleza genética, que explicaría las semejanzas en la expresión emocional o involuntaria, y otra ambiental, que daría cuenta de las diferencias en la expresión voluntaria. Por último, se plantean las consecuencias de este trabajo para las distintas disciplinas psicológicas.