This exploratory study examines the role virtual reality can play in student speech practice for oral communication courses. The study focuses on situational communication apprehension of the virtual reality practice session in relation to students who practice face-to-face and the final grade of the subsequent speech. Test and control groups…

The results of this study argue that communication, and specifically oral communication education, is critical to students' future personal and professional success. Similar to two earlier studies, thematic analysis of 679 documents in academic and popular press publications, published from 2008 to 2015, provide support for the centrality of the…

Provides suggestions for teaching ethics including such issues as ethical standards, ethical values, and quality of ethics. (PD)

Describes the structural similarities inherent in musical and linguistic compositions and how they reflect basic human impulses and principles of effective composition. Uses Bach's "Passacaglia" to illustrate the characteristics of good composition. (JMF)

Looks at three approaches to teaching interpersonal communication comparing their intellectual bases and pedagogic procedures, and advocates the humane scientific approach. (MH)

Examines research (in communication theory and in cognitive neural sciences) which supports the view that mindful and mindless communicative behavior coexist and operate in complementary fashion during information processing. Argues that current communication pedagogy does not reflect this emerging model and that adaptations in content and…

Presents a rationale for incorporating cross examination as a basic goal of teaching argument and discusses a system for generating cross examination questions and methods for practicing the development of such questions. (MH)

Describes the functioning of Murray's Interpersonal Communication Laboratory (first established in 1949) designed to help students internalize the principles of general semantics and apply them to everyday problems in communication. (PD)

Examines advantages, disadvantages, and preliminary assessments of the training model and the consulting/training (CONTRA) model approaches to providing oral communication instruction in Oral Communication across the Curriculum programs. Recommends the CONTRA model. (SR)

Argues that teaching communication skills is a fundamentally political matter. Discusses why the implicit politics of communication as a field attracts detractors. (SR)

Describes the conceptual patterns approach to rhetorical invention, a way to help students become aware of and activate their thought patterns in composing speeches. (PD)

Argues that video can provide effective feedback in performance courses (in speech communication) by creating opportunities for students to take the role of observer, identify and emphasize specific skills, receive feedback simultaneously with performance, and make comparisons. (SR)

Suggests that speech communication instructors consider teaching a unit advertising course and offers a series of instructional alternatives for constructing such a unit. (MH)

Discusses the need for establishing instruction which aids student understanding of mass media process and effects and which facilitates rational and influential responses to media. (MH)

Offers a seven-stage process design for use in preparing students to be effective critics and receivers of persuasive messages. (MH)