This report offers an interdisciplinary approach for conducting assessment on learning outcomes in undergraduate communication research skills where information literacy is embedded in the expected outcome. A Communication Studies department and the University Library piloted a two-year program to develop strategies for coordinated assessment that…

Objective: Students will develop positive attitudes toward communication research by linking new values and principles with the familiar values and principles contained in children's literature. Course: Communication Research Methods.

This paper is an effort to explore the connections between feminist methodologies and more traditional research programs, specifically the ethnography of communication. The paper discusses four major areas. The paper provides an overview of the ethnography of communication. Second, the paper discusses feminist methodologies. Third, the paper…

Investigates whether the measurement distinction between first- and second-order measures of cultivation results in operationalizations that are independent or related to one another. Finds that the two are related to a weak degree at a general level, but stronger relationships exist on a contingent analysis. (SR)

Although researchers and scholars have extolled the virtues of multi-method approaches to research by triangulation for at least two decades, implementation of these approaches to research has been slow. This is due primarily to the complexities inherent in the combination of different orders of data, theoretical constructs, and methodological…

Message processing literature could conceptualize process in one of two distinct ways: a single over-time process as described by J. N. Cappella, versus several processes as described by D. K. Berlo. An examination of literature finds that theories are based on both forms of these over-time processes. However, operationalization rarely measures…

Noting the lack of business communication research, the authors conclude that a mind-set may exist toward quantitative research. They define and advance qualitative research techniques as an alternative. (PD)

Discusses the establishment of collective memory studies. Addresses six premises for collective remembering that are basic to contemporary scholarship: that collective memory is processual, unpredictable, partial, useable, both particular and universal, and material. Discusses the future of collective memory studies. (SR)

Addresses five questions that must be considered by business communication researchers if the results of surveys are to be significant and useful: What do the researches want to know? About whom do they want to know it? How should the questions be worded? How should appropriate and adequate responses be elicited? and How are the results to be…

States that conversation analysis has enjoyed recent acceptance in mainstream communication research. Points out that one criticism is that conversation analysts have not felt obligated to demonstrate "intertranscriber" reliability for the use of transcription notation. Finds that multiple transcribers are capable of producing similar…

Uses a hypothetical example of an institutional review board's concerns about a speech communication faculty member's research project to illustrate current issues that speech communication administrators, departmental faculty, and graduate students need to consider as their human-subjects based research becomes increasingly overseen by external…

Explains that Type I error is a risk undertaken whenever significance tests are conducted, and the chances of committing a Type I error increase as the number of significance tests increases. Notes that adjusting the alpha level because of the number of tests conducted in a given study has no principled basis, commits one to absurd beliefs and…

Tries to distinguish the key insights from some distortions by clarifying the goals of experiment-wise error control that D. O'Keefe correctly identifies as vague and open to misuse. Concludes that a better understanding of the goal of experiment-wise error correction erases many of these "absurdities," but the clarifications necessary…

Responds to Daniel O'Keefe's "Against Familywise Alpha Adjustment," where O'Keefe maintains that one should never attempt to control Type I error introduced when many statistical tests are conducted. Argues that alpha adjustment should be applied only in the narrowly circumscribed instance when the researcher wants to make a strong claim…

Responds to other articles in this colloquy. Notes that they propose that alpha adjustment can appropriately be mandated when the set of tests concerns the key claims of a single theory. Considers how consistent application of this reasoning commits one to bizarre beliefs and research practices--which suggests that this reasoning does not provide…