The questionnaire responses of 768 people from a variety of ethnic groups were analyzed to determine what communication channels were used to link ethnics to their native countries and to provide news of the ethnic community. The relationships between channel preferences and demographics, ethnicity, and communication channel patterns were also…

After discussing the rhetorical nature of physician/patient interactions, this paper describes and analyzes six medical interviews to illustrate the evolution of interpersonal and role relationships between physicians and patients, the sorts of information that are shared, and the way problems are resolved. The interviews that are described…

The psychological and social adjustment patterns of 809 Indochinese refugee heads of household in Illinois were examined by collecting data on their intrapersonal and interpersonal communication patterns. Four of five propositions derived from an interactive communication theory of the acculturation process were supported. The Indochinese…

Based on the assumption that the variables used in diffusion of information studies in developing nations are subject to Western bias, theoretically complex, difficult to compare across cultures, and difficult to operationalize, a study was undertaken to test the predictive ability of simpler demographic variables. The data were drawn from a…

An exploratory study was conducted of the ways people accommodate television in social interaction in contrast to the way they accommodate other individuals. Videotapes were made of five dyads--composed of members of a college speech course--who were told to wait in a small room before they were needed for a study. Each dyad was subjected to four…

A study of formal communication in 30 families each with a schizophrenic son and 28 families, each with a "normal" son was conducted in Germany. By means of factor analysis four types of formal speech behavior were identified using musical terminology: "staccato," a highly fragmented flow of conversation with high turnover rate; "solo" in which…

A computer-assisted analysis of studies on referential communication (giving directions/explanations) located 66 reports involving 80 experiments, 114 referential tasks, and over 6,200 individuals. The studies were entered into a statistical software package system (SPSS) and analyzed for characteristics of the subjects and experimental designs,…

Two sessions of a kindergarten show and tell (spaced 18 days apart) were observed to compare the participant structure and the content of this shared time. Participant structure was examined in terms of turn taking, spatial arrangement, and teacher management of the event. Content was analyzed in terms of topic and cognitive level. The changes in…

A total of 106 college graduates who had taken a basic communication course was surveyed to obtain their perspectives on communication training. Although the alumni rated communication skills as being highly important, three-fourths of them did not receive communication training after college. Most of the alumni felt either "fairly well" or "okay"…

Two studies were conducted examining the sex role stereotyping and status differentiation of college professors by their students. The first study examined student perceptions of college professors' ideal traits to ascertain possible influences of sex role stereotyping. A total of 184 students participated in a three-stage process of selecting the…

A study was designed to determine the particular effects of humorous illustrations on a textbook's teaching effectiveness, appeal, persuasibility, and potential to motivate. Experimental text materials were prepared in two levels of difficulty and six cartoons were drawn to illustrate different educational points that were made in the materials.…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 21 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) interpersonal communication patterns in whole families, (2) interpersonal conflict and cognitive complexity, (3) adult conceptualization of interpersonal…

A study examined the relationships among communication predispositions and behaviors and learning preferences. It also assessed instrumentation adequacy for learning style preference. Subjects were 423 high school students who completed a battery of instruments, including D. A. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI), that measured their perceptions…

An exploratory study was conducted to define and differentiate interruptions structurally and tactically. The participants were 60 college students assigned to female-female, female-male, and male-male conversational dyads. The dyadic conversations were recorded for 14 minutes, during a period of "getting to know each other" and during a…

Technical Communication Competence (TCC)is the competence involved in communicating mental images to others in such a manner as to result in their constructing comparable mental images, a process similar to the primary task demanded of teachers at all levels. In a study designed to discover the extent to which a positive relationship existed…