Conducts a factor analysis to determine listening barriers perceived as most frequently affecting the listening effectiveness among business college students. Finds the presence of six listening barriers, with the barrier "listen primarily for details or facts" as the most frequently encountered barrier perceived by students. (MM)

Examines a descriptive model of communication relationships between members of collectives to determine whether perceptions are the result of formal structure, collective interests, or individual interests. Finds structures of perceived communication relationships are similar across organizations, whereas structures in observable communication are…

Reports the results of four studies examining how Afro-Americans perceive interethnic communication with Whites. Uses an interpretive, cultural perspective in questionnaires and interviews as well as quantitative and qualitative analyses to identify seven issues of communication satisfaction and five conversational improvement strategies,…

Examines strategies that students use to signal comprehension problems in classrooms, specifically, requests for clarification. Finds strategies differ with regard to the type and amount of communicative effort required of participants. (MS)

Expands the definition of supportive communication ties and examines the relationship of communication network roles to job stress and burnout in public elementary schools. Finds that isolates report significantly less stress than linkers, group members, and dyads and significantly less burnout than linkers and dyads. (SR)

R. Hart and D. Burks (1972) indicated that rhetorical sensitivity (RS) is a cognitive orientation to communication competence that stresses the importance of appropriate adaptation and flexibility in interpersonal communication interactions. In 1980, Hart, Carlson and Eadie developed an instrument called RHETSEN scale, a 40-item questionnaire. The…

A study sought to affirm the previously established relationship between irrational beliefs and communication apprehension. Four hundred and fifty-four subjects completed an Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) and all 24 questions of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) test. Results support the hypothesis that students high in…

A study investigated the issues that Blacks perceive as salient to their satisfaction and dissatisfaction with communication with Whites, and whether these issues were independent of age, biological sex, and income. Two groups of subjects, selected from economically determined working class students in a large introductory speech communication…

This study investigated the effects of oral communication apprehension and writing communication apprehension on student contact with instructors outside the classroom and the effects of apprehension on academic achievement. Results indicated that apprehension negatively affects both student assistance outside the classroom and academic…

Recent findings on the communicative functions of the left versus the right hemisphere of the brain may suggest that there is a distinction between the intentional use of symbols for the sending of specific messages or propositions (language, signing, pantomime) and spontaneous expressive behaviors that signal their meaning through a natural…

Defining "idols of communication" as widely-held ideas that obstruct progress in the development of interpersonal communication theory, this paper identifies three principles deserving of the title. The identified principles are: (1) the idol of coorientation, the belief that mutual understandings are the essential grounds for the coordination of…

Arguing that, as a general principle, the most efficient, best organized and managed organization would have little duplication of work or of service to its markets or publics, this paper presents a method for assessing duplication among organizational components of work performed and of services to various publics and for determining the extent…

Presents a model of social confrontation (communication episodes initiated when one participant signals that the other's behavior violates a rule or expectation for appropriate conduct). Describes issues arising during social confrontation. Concludes that negotiating expectations or relational rules within a problematic situation is the crux of…

Investigates the effectiveness of the prose communication in contemporary corporate annual reports. Indicates that a sample of 65 Canadian annual reports for 1984 were classified as "difficult" to "very difficult" and beyond the fluent comprehension ease of 92 percent of the adult population and 56 percent of the investor…

Indicates the recognition on the part of chief executive officers that they are the company spokespersons and must have good communication skills in order to communicate effectively to the media and special interest groups. (EL)