Multiculturalism has a place in basic communication courses. At a personal level, cross-cultural communication is concerned with the way a person chooses to treat another--it is a question of communication ethics, a subject that should be introduced in any basic communication course because communicators must consider how to deal fairly and…

A course in the honors program (a sophomore level social science seminar) at Millikin University offers an interdisciplinary approach to communication and sexuality, functions as a course in the Gender Studies Minor curriculum, and provides a needed source of sex education for the campus. The purpose of the course is to facilitate communication…

In an advanced oral communication course, students make five major presentations. One of the foundations of extemporaneous speaking is the ability to outline relevant points and phrases in a coherent, orderly manner. Advanced students must be able to take any topic and dissect it quickly to determine the most succinct way to present it to an…

The "Competent Group Communicator" is an assessment tool designed to evaluate the performance of individual members who participate in task-oriented small group discussions. This instrument is designed to be used to evaluate the performance of students enrolled in a small group communication course, as a course placement tool, as a pre-…

In this pivotal time in the 20th-century electronic revolution, when electronic communication is becoming more widespread and affordable, it is certainly worth while to consider the implications that computer mediated communication has for the basic course student's understanding of the communication process. There is a growing need to address…

Focusing on the similarities and differences in men's and women's verbal and nonverbal communication behavior, this 33-item annotated bibliography presents a sample of articles appearing in speech communication publications on the subject. Categories of the annotated bibliography are books, sexism and sexual harassment in academia, theoretic…

A study measured the reputations of doctoral programs in communication. Approximately 980 surveys were sent to contact people at institutions with communication disciplines. A second sample of approximately 620 names were drawn from Ph.D. level members of the Speech Communication Association (SCA) who do not teach at doctoral granting…

This paper introduces an exercise that aims to facilitate interaction between international and American students, arguing that the best place to facilitate such interaction is in an intercultural communication course. The exercise is primarily aimed at strengthening the abilities of American students, who possess greater host language proficiency…

A study described and assessed a working experiential learning model used since 1976 as an adjunct to the basic speech communication course at the University College of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. In addition to class attendance, students in the basic course meet in a communication laboratory for one hour per week. The overall functioning of…

Updating a 1984 publication, this bibliography lists and briefly annotates 35 selected books (published from 1957 to 1987) about the censorship of sexual materials from ancient times to the present. A list of five reference sources is included for those who wish to add materials from periodicals. (SR)

As part of a state-mandated assessment process, faculty and students need innovative approaches which can empower them to learn, grow, and change in the classroom. The University of Missouri-Kansas City Department of Communication Studies uses three types of student portfolios: (1) a university-wide portfolio of the student's work in all courses…

A study involving 108 freshmen and 109 sophomores enrolled in business communication classes at Portsmouth Polytechnic Institute in England examined the following questions: (1) Will there be significant differences between the means of freshmen and sophomores from England in rating trait-CA (communication apprehension), context-CA, and state-CA…

There are three arguments against the usefulness of present basic course textbooks in speech communication. First, there are certain inherent forces that will always drive textbook publishers toward the production of textbooks unsuitable for the basic course: "mentioning" (mentioning every principle ever heard of by potential users of…

This paper examines the impact of traditional and accelerated public speaking instruction on undergraduate-level students' self-perceptions of communication apprehension and self-esteem. Subjects, students at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs were enrolled in the same semester in either a 16-week traditional public speaking course…

One of the most common communication technologies being used in the classroom is the videocassette recorder. The videotaping of students' performances provides the instructor with a form of visual feedback that can be used to reinforce concepts and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the students' performances. Past studies have typically…