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…

In this study, we explore the heuristic decision-making skills of undergraduate students as they incorporate information into their persuasive speeches. We interviewed 26 students enrolled in an introductory communication course to ascertain their information literacy for vetting sources for their public speeches. From their responses, we…

Engagement has received significant research attention in recent years in an effort to better understand student achievement and the lack of it. Oral participation is generally highly valued in American classrooms and is often thought to be a good indicator of students' engagement in learning. As a result, many college instructors require and/or…

Listeners evaluate well-delivered presentations more positively than those that are poorly delivered. In today's world, presenters often face challenging questions and objections from listeners during or after their presentations. Surprisingly, while there are a number of theoretical reasons to anticipate that how presenters respond to objections…

Imagined interactions (IIs) constitute a type of social cognition that can reduce fear of communication. Through the mental preparation enabled by IIs, an individual can reduce disfluencies and mitigate the anxiety that arises from a speech. Study 1 indicated that rehearsal influences the reduction of silent pauses but not vocalized pauses. In…

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…

The basic communication course, with its roots in classical Greece and Rome, is frequently a required course in general education. The course often serves as our "front porch," welcoming new students to the Communication discipline. This essay first outlines early traditions in oral communication instruction and their influence on future…

Elwood Murray (1897-1988) was a pioneer in communication education. Beginning in the 1930s, he applied nontraditional methods in the speech classroom to encourage students to internalize and apply what they learned, and to view knowledge holistically. Drawing on the work of Kunkel, Moreno, Lewin, and Korzybski, Murray focused on developing skills…

This comprehensive review of the assessment of oral communication in the communication discipline is both descriptive and empirical in nature. First, some background on the topic of communication assessment is provided. Following the descriptive background, we present an empirical analysis of academic papers, research studies, and books about…

This study proposes to expand the scope of oral communication across the curriculum research by exploring oral genres in a dietetics curriculum from the perspective of the dietetics faculty. The goals of this qualitative study, couched within the communication in the disciplines framework, are to identify the oral genres integral to the study and…

This study provides a rationale for the claim that communication instruction is critical to students' future personal and professional success. Thematic analysis of 93 journal and newspaper articles, reports, and surveys provide evidence of the centrality of communication in developing the whole person, improving the educational enterprise, being…

Discusses some of the current computer network services of interest to scholars, teachers, and students in communication studies. Discusses issues of access and use. (SR)

Discusses the major arguments for and against ghostwriting. (PD)

Reflects on the importance of a professional association in the life of a speech communication teacher. (PD)

Examines speech communication defined problems of reticence and/or communication apprehension pointing out the inappropriate use of the medical model to deal with such problems. Suggests that a specialist called a "rhetoritherapist" deal with these problems through training in various rhetorical subprocesses. (MH)