A number of strategies, informed by science education research, have been identified to assist the understanding and communication of difficult concepts in science. A teacher's craft lies in creating learning experiences that facilitate concept development and challenge misconceptions from which students actively build, modify, and extend their…

Communication courses have a unique role to play in the education of the adult or nontraditional student in a community college. Because these classes are often one of the introductory courses and academic success may, to a large extent depend on the ability to use oral communication skills in the classroom. Communication courses provide an…

Section B of the Miscellaneous Studies section of the proceedings contains the following 16 papers: "Ethics--Is It on the Media's Agenda: A Content Analysis of Three Trade Magazines" (Steven R. Snyder and Roxanne Buchanan); "Blacks, Whites and Read All Over: Ending Slurs on Newspaper Use by Race" (Gerald Stone); "Ethics in…

A study examined the role of the mass media in the development of people's conceptions about a neo-Nazi march planned for Skokie, Illinois, in 1978. The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not and in what respects different types of people had developed common conceptions about the event and what role the mass media played in that…

Prepared as part of a series applying recent research in oral and written communication instruction to classroom practice, this booklet provides teachers, administrators, and curriculum planners with suggestions for ways to develop more effective oral communication instruction in the content areas as well as speech classes. Following a brief…

Prepared as part of a series applying recent research in oral and written communication instruction to classroom practice, this booklet focuses on how children and young adults make meaning in speech and writing and on ways teachers can encourage their language development. Following a brief introduction, the first major section of the booklet…

A three-part empirical study analyzed (1) the communication structure of a university faculty, (2) faculty roles, and (3) factors and dimensions of faculty perceptions. In the first phase, 389 faculty members at a large southwestern university responded to three questionnaires mailed at intervals to determine respondents' sex, academic degree,…

A project conducted in the volunteer program of a county library system in a midwestern city assisted the volunteer coordinator in assessing the library's performance appraisal process for volunteers and in identifying ways to make the process more effective. Factors in performance appraisal which were most applicable and effective to the context…

A study examined the degree to which members of different ethnic groups--Whites/Anglos, Hispanic/Latinos, Asians, and Blacks--vary in (1) the reasons they adopt for communicating or not communicating with strangers, (2) the situations in which they choose to interact with strangers, and (3) the types of strangers with whom they feel comfortable…

This study determined if the relationship between teacher communication style and teacher effectiveness differed for traditional undergraduate students and non-traditional adult learners. Subjects, 192 traditional undergraduate students and 167 non-traditional adult learners, provided teacher communication style and teacher effectiveness ratings…

The foreign and international studies section of the proceedings includes the following 11 papers: "The Role of Culture in Development Communication Research and the Use of Ethnography in Development Communication Project Planning" (Jeff Merron); "A Catechism for Censorship: The Development of Circular Number 1000 in World War I…

Compiled for Japanese teachers of English who are interested in intercultural communication, this bibliography is broken down into 16 subcategories. Most items in the bibliography come from primary sources, and for each source available at the Michigan State University Library, the bibliography provides call numbers. The first section lists books…

A study considered whether nonnative English-speaking students are educationally handicapped in American classrooms by their communication competence (CC) and/or communication apprehension (CA). Affective, cognitive, and behavioral learning outcomes of 298 international college students' CA, immediacy (degree of perceived physical or psychological…

Featuring 11 articles of original research, this collection presents selected works from the proceedings of the ninth Annual Communications Research Symposium. Following are the titles and authors of the articles included: (1) "Issues in Inferring Media Effects from Surveys" (S. H. Chaffee); (2) "Expectancy Value Theory and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 34 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) object conservation and receptive language in day care center infants; (2) the syntactic incorporation of linguistic units; (3) implicit theories of meaning in…