Discusses outcomes assessment. Describes the Boise State Project, a comprehensive outcomes assessment study of alumni of the Department of Communication spanning a 20-year period, 1970-1989. Discusses conceptualization and design, methodology, analysis of data, general survey findings, and conclusions. (SR)

The results of three projects concerned with auditory word recognition and the structure of the lexicon are reported in this paper. The first project described was designed to test experimentally several specific predictions derived from MACS, a simulation model of the Cohort Theory of word recognition. The second project description provides the…

Results of a communication skills training program for high school students indicated that these students demonstrated significantly higher self-disclosure and empathy skills levels than untrained students. (Author)

Investigates the interactional rhythmicity among a group of four people and presents a new analytic model involving two parameters, floor and time. The model is used to further investigate the emic meaning of interactional rhythm and cross-cultural differences. (47 references) (GLR)

Divided into two sections, this report describes research on the range and degree of assessment of students' communication skills in colleges and universities and includes the following findings: (1) of the 384 respondents from college speech communication departments, 45 reported using large-scale, uniform testing of students; (2) these…

Discusses service learning (learning that combines public service with related academic work) and service learning projects in an undergraduate course on mass communication and society. Finds that it is an effective means of teaching that increases student understanding of complex material. (SR)

An increase in foreign student enrollment and subsequent questioning of traditional concepts of western rhetorical practice, particularly freedom of speech, resulted in an evaluation of current teaching practices in South Dakota State University's basic speech communication course. In a summer session course, 36 international students responded to…

Describes characteristics of the Native Esperanto of eight speakers, ranging from age 6 to 14 years. Found bilingualism and nativization effects, differentiating native from non-native Esperanto speech. Among these effects are loss or modification of the accusative case, phonological reduction, attrition of tense/aspect system, and pronominal…

A research project investigated the efficacy of reading methods utilized when a writer was on a sabbatical in the Shandong Province, People's Republic of China, teaching an Oral English Workshop for Chinese teachers of English at Yantai University. At the beginning of the project, students were assessed and placed into three levels based on their…

Describes the use of the Communication Anxiety Graph (CAG) to help students trace the pattern of their anxiety when making a speech. Also reports the results of a study using the CAG. Provides advice for student speakers based on when their anxiety peak may occur. (PD)

This article describes the Colorado Phonetic/Phonologic Assessment of Hearing-Impaired Infants and Toddlers (PHONE) and the speech of 91 hearing-impaired infants and toddlers, examining number of vowels, consonants, elements per utterance, and utterances; differences by age and by hearing loss for each vowel and consonant; and relationship to…

At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), an urban university, students drop out of college on a regular basis. Developing a community of linked courses appears to be an effective way of reaching the university's goal of helping students stay in school past the critical first semester when many of them tend to leave. Seeking to help…

Describes a study that investigated the effect teenage folklore storytelling has on the self-esteem of adolescents; its effect on building oral communication and storytelling skills; adolescent perceptions of the media center and public library; and cooperative ventures between school library media specialists and public librarians. (Contains 95…

Typically, efforts by English, speech, and developmental reading departments to make students "complete communicators" have been confined to one or two basic skills courses giving unsuccessful "one-shot" inoculations in the theory and practice of one of the communication competencies. As such communication is not taught in the context of the…

Secondary education majors participated in a one-week microteaching program in which they were trained to identify and quantify verbal behaviors that inhibit teacher clarity. Teacher clarity indicators were identified as vagueness terms and mazes. Vagueness terms are indicated by approximation or lack of clarity and assurance. Mazes are garbles,…