In response to ongoing concerns about financial ethics, this study analyzes the speech of company executives in quarterly earnings conference calls to understand strategic usage of ethics-related language. Against the backdrop of the recent global financial crisis, the Aristotelian concept of ethos provides a framework to investigate linguistic…

Introduction: This study examines the protective effects of variables of dispositional optimism and creativity with respect to measurements of psychopathology or psychological distress. Method: A total of 113 university students from different degree programs participated in the research. Measures of creativity (CREA), optimism (LOT-R) and…

During recent years, some college classrooms have moved away from traditional teacher-centered lecture pedagogies toward learner-centered strategies. Relatively little empirical evidence exists to date assessing the utility of such pedagogies. This exploratory study examined the content and structure of student speech outlines from…

While the prevalence of specific phobias and social phobias is believed to be high in the general adult population, little data exists regarding the prevalence of these fears among college students. This paper describes an epidemiological study that surveyed 813 college students regarding the severity of fears experienced toward 12 objects and…

Considered by many to be the foundation upon which our discipline was built, the study of public speaking has evolved from its humble beginnings into a vast literature of experimental and expositional studies. The focus of research on public speaking has primarily been to discover the antecedents, causes, and consequences of anxiety associated…

Although previous research has linked students' expected grades to numerous pedagogical variables, this factor has been all but ignored by instructional communication scholars. In the present study, 315 undergraduates were presented with grading scenarios representing differing combinations of course rigor, teacher immediacy, and student…

This article examines an established course on Popular Culture which is framed within the general educational model in an English-medium university. The article is organized into three parts: the underlining educational rationale for general educational courses, the course description, and the students' perspectives of their learning experience.…

This report presents baseline and process study findings of an evaluation of the Urban Alliance high school internship program, which provides training, mentoring, and work experience to high school seniors from distressed communities in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, and Chicago. The report, which focuses on the program's…

Students in Honors Physical Geology at Louisiana State University (LSU) participated in instruction in eighth- to ninth-grade geology and geography classes in East Baton Rouge Parish Schools (EBRPS) to help meet community needs. LSU students created instructional materials and reflected on the service activity to gain a deeper understanding of…

This study investigated deep learning produced in a community of general education courses. Student speeches on liberal education were analyzed for discovering a grounded theory of ideas about self. The study found that learning communities cultivate deep, integrative learning that makes the value of a liberal education relevant to students.…

One method frequently employed as an intervention to reduce anti-gay bias is a lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) speaker panel. These speakers share brief biographical sketches about their coming out experiences and then answer questions. A pretest/posttest control group design examined the impact of LGB speaker panels on university students'…

The improvement of communication both within and outside of the classroom is promoted by the national Communication-Across-the-Curriculum (CXC) initiative. The first CXC-based program emerged in 1974 at Center College, in Iowa, and since that time, the CXC initiative has gone through a number of changes and challenges. The Virginia Community…

The present study contributes to developing a Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) to measure anxiety in the EFL public speaking class in the Thai context. Items were adopted from previous scales: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al. (1986); Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) and Personal…

This article presents the results of a content analysis of 10 current public-speaking textbooks to determine the nature and extent to which they teach listening in an integrated approach with public speaking as an oral activity. Lewis and Nichols (1965) predicted that listening would increasingly be taught especially in an integrated approach with…

High school graduation requirements are becoming increasingly demanding. In addition to meeting academic benchmarks, some school districts have added performance requirements such as oral presentations to their criteria for earning a high school diploma. This type of requirement may present an additional challenge for students with learning…