This study examined the feedback choices made by 12 professors which they executed in their freshman/sophomore level speech communication performance-based courses. Each instructor tape recorded and coded two 10-minute feedback sessions. Each teacher also responded in free writing form about self-correcting perceptions subsequent to the coding of…

The framework presented in this manual is designed to provide school district personnel with guidelines for developing curricular programs for theater arts based upon the needs of students in their individual school districts. The manual furnishes goals and objectives upon which to build a series of sequential learning experiences for use in the…

To garner administrative support and to develop meaningful public relations in the academic, scholastic, and local communities, individual events program directors should focus their efforts on things over which they have control. First, directors should develop behavioral objectives for individual events programs which are consistent with the…

Theories of persuasion have long assumed a process which includes comprehension of the message by the recipient. Several hundred undergraduates at Ohio State University and Marshall University (Ohio) participated in six experiments examining persuasion and the use of unintelligible messages. Subjects in individual cubicles of a university language…

Institutional retrenchment is an on-going process in academia. So that crises can be avoided in the retrenchment process, every institution should develop processes both for the continual review of units by faculty colleagues and to ensure faculty participation in the management of the institution. Decisions about retrenchment should be based on…

Critical Incident Technique (CIT) involves the collection of real-world examples of behavior that characterize either very effective or very ineffective performance of some activity. The principal advantage of the CIT is that it generates data based on actual behavior rather than on a particular researcher's subjectivity. The CIT has much to offer…

An overview of the literature in family communication since 1976 reveals that a huge body of research continues to focus on the family context but that little of this research is being conducted by scholars whose primary interest is communication. Communication researchers could make a contribution to family communication research if they…

Comparing the manner in which contestants' scores were tabulated at both the 1985 American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament (AFA-NIET) and National Forensic Association Individual Events Nationals (NFA-IEN), a study (1) examined whether a correlation exists between contestants placing in the quarterfinals with five…

A study determined the relationship between communicator style and argumentativeness and clarified the relationship between psychological gender and communicator style. Three hundred and fourteen college students enrolled in introductory health and communication courses responded to the Communicator Style Measure, the Argumentativeness Scale, and…

This paper uses symbolic convergence theory and evoked recall or resonance theory in an attempt to explain the phenomenon of "A Prairie Home Companion"--a weekly live radio program broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio featuring music and the "news" from fictional Lake Wobegon as related by Garrison Keillor, the show's…

Graduate programs in speech communication offer students a variety of assistantships including a forensic assistantship. Among factors affecting assistantships that have not been investigated in past studies, three stand out. The first factor that should be considered is the size of the entire graduate program in the department. The nature of a…

In light of rhetorical approaches to interpersonal communication, this paper compares the ethics behind the "rhetorical sensitivity" concept of Roderick Hart and Don Burks and the ethics of Christian communication. Outlined are Hart and Burks' exposition of the characteristics of the rhetorically sensitive person which are then compared…

Feminist thinkers offer new interpretations of the role of technology in social life. As society has progressed, men have become culture-centered rather than nature-centered, while women have remained nature-centered. Thus, women's devaluation resides in man's desire to control both nature and women. The values of objectivity, progress,…

Traditionally, the study of public address has meant the study of great speakers, focusing on individual speech texts, or the speaking careers of individual orators. So dominant was this traditional study of public address that, in its halcyon decades of the l930s, 1940s, and 1950s, it all but eliminated other approaches to rhetorical criticism.…

Words, like any other information resource, must be managed in order to contribute to the achievement of organizational goals. Managing communication refers to planning, organizing, leading, and controlling words. Planning determines goals and how they can be best accomplished, and aids in providing direction for the message, thus increasing the…