Construction of visual material to enhance audience understanding of an oral presentation is an important skill in educational and professional settings. Many first-year undergraduates may not be familiar with the basic principles of effective slide design to increase audience understanding. However, faculty face time pressures to train students…

Although scholars emphasised the essence of feedback delivered on virtual reality-based tasks, it remains unclear whether the acquisition of students' oral presentation skills can be enhanced by the timing of feedback. An exploratory study, recently conducted in a Dutch university, explores the potential differential impact of immediate versus…

Students in secondary education often suffer from public speaking stress, but formal education does not provide any means to support the battle with this anxiety. This study aims at decreasing public speaking stress and increasing public speaking competence via an innovative intervention program that is rooted in the principles of…

In 2017, representatives from the James Madison University Honors College asked if faculty members in the School of Communication Studies would develop a version of the General Education human communication course for all incoming Honors undergraduate students in the fall semester. The goal was to provide these students with a common cohort…

Politicians usually use plural personal pronouns we and us to highlight their qualities or positive aspects or of their in-group members. They also use these pronouns to represent a team, group or an organization and show shared responsibilities. This paper employs CDA approach to analyze the discursive practice of using inclusive and exclusive…

As educators, we've all probably experienced presenting in new places and/or audiences, and having some sort of mishap. Therefore, as part of their professional preparation, we should prepare our students with realistic presentation practice, mishaps and all! Within this paper, I will outline a pedagogical tool that randomizes potential…

The current research is mainly conducted to explore the pragmatic functions of English rhetoric in public speech. To do this, methods of close reading and case studies are adopted. The research first reveals that the boom of public speech programs helps reexamine the art of utterance, during the delivery of which English rhetoric plays an…

The purpose of this study was to add to the knowledge on the value of professional communities of practice as a performance improvement intervention. Value was defined as the awareness of the benefits and outcomes, provided as improvement in a tangible or intangible way, that positively impact organizations and/or individuals and their personal…

This study examines how students characterize their experience of a communication-based digital humanities project in relation to elements of situated embodiment and situated learning. Analysis of student response data indicates that the Virtual Martin Luther King Project situates students in a particular space and historical context resulting in…

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…

Basic communication courses (BCCs) are evolving, and technology is a driver of this change. Guided by self-efficacy theory, this study examined the use of virtual reality speaking rehearsals as one technology that instructors can adopt to enhance students' public speaking efficacy. Students (N = 32) in this study practiced their final informative…

Since 2007, when the Massachusetts Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Initiative (MAICEI) was launched, college students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have been involved in advocacy efforts to promote inclusive postsecondary education. These efforts include informing legislators, higher education personnel, school…

The purpose of this study was to assess the leadership status of women in the instructional technology field during the period 2014-2018. Five areas of leadership were examined (a) faculty rank in instructional technology programs, (b) positions on editorial boards of leading instructional technology journals, (c) publications in leading…

Anxiety has a significant effect on oral communication, particularly when it occurs in the form of a public address. The quality of a public academic speaker's oral presentation may highly be determined by a variety of emotive elements. However, this has received much too little attention in the realm of academic dissertation oral defense…

The interactive nature of basic communication courses creates an ideal environment for students to form connections with their peers. Unfortunately, when students on the autism spectrum display atypical communication and behaviors, their classmates often reject and isolate them. Basic course programs can change these social dynamics through…