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This study sought to gain insight into how faculty in other disciplines perceive communication skills as well as to conduct a needs analysis that can help us to develop resources to support faculty who are integrating communication assignments into their disciplinary courses. Survey data were collected from 232 faculty at three large, public universities, and qualitative follow-up interviews were conducted with 12 faculty across institutions and disciplines. Results showed that there is wide variation in the complexity with which our colleagues define communication. Group and interaction skills were among the most valued communication skills, along with a variety of presentation skills. While explanatory and argumentation skills were highly valued, they are also areas where growth is needed. Online and mediated communication skills were rated as least important in the survey that was completed prior to COVID-19, but were discussed as an emerging need in the interviews conducted during the pandemic.

Continuing a tradition dating back to 1968, this tenth study in a longitudinal series of surveys of the basic communication course has two goals: (1) to provide descriptive information about the basic course contemporarily and over time; and (2) to propose a framework for interpreting the impact of the extraordinary national and international events of 2020, on higher education in general and the basic communication course in particular. A survey, which retained questions about trends identified in the past nine studies conducted on the basic communication course from 1956 to 2016, was updated to include additional questions on topics of contemporary concern. National distribution of the survey instrument resulted in a total of 160 respondents (26 from two-year schools, 134 from four-year schools). This study reports and discusses data across six categories: (1) general description of the course and enrollment patterns; (2) course instruction, training, and administration problems; (3) standardization and grading; (4) course content and pedagogy; (5) media, technology, and online teaching; and (6) contemporary challenges and issues facing the basic course. Reflections based on trends in the data, and recommendations for future scholarship about the course based on the results and current challenges in higher education, are offered.

Given the opportunities new technologies afford students and instructors, this mixed methods, longitudinal study examined factors impacting college students' behavioral intentions for adopting virtual reality (VR) headsets and 360° video for public speaking rehearsals. Using the technology acceptance model, quantitative findings suggest that both the perceived usefulness of these technologies for rehearsing final speech assignments and VR anxiety influence students' behavioral intentions to personally adopt VR technology and 360° video or recommend its adoption to communication centers, friends, or other instructors. Qualitatively, students discussed perceived usefulness, as well as positive and negative emotional reactions, which may act as additional facilitators and inhibitors to technology adoption. Based on our findings, conclusions and implications are suggested for those interested in adopting VR headsets and 360° video for public speaking rehearsals.

Extending previous research on the Computers Are Social Actors paradigm and the human-to-human interaction script, this study examines the interpersonal impressions of a social robot evaluator versus a human evaluator in a performance evaluation context. A between-subjects experiment was conducted to measure participants' impressions of the credibility, task and social attractiveness, and social presence of a social robot or a human evaluator of their public speaking performances. Additionally, participants rated the competence of the feedback they received. Both evaluators (human and social robot) garnered mostly "favorable" interpersonal impressions. Moreover, both agents' feedback was rated favorably. In all cases, the human evaluator was rated significantly higher than the social robot evaluator. Implications for the use of social robots in educational evaluator roles and for future human-robot interaction research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between visiting a communication center and taking an introductory communication course on student public-speaking anxiety, goal orientation, and motivation. Researchers analyzed pre- and post-course survey data for 1,373 students enrolled in a fundamentals of communication course. Results showed that, for students who reported medium and high levels of public-speaking anxiety at the beginning of the semester and before visiting the communication center, the communication center helped reduce their levels of anxiety, whereas students with low levels of reported public-speaking anxiety did not report as much of a difference in their anxiety levels after visiting the communication center. There was a significant main effect for communication-center visits on the goal-orientation types of mastery approach, performance approach, mastery avoidance, and performance avoidance. However, there were no significant effects for work avoidance. Results indicated a significant effect for communication center visits on motivation types: identified regulation and external motivation. However, there were no significant effects for intrinsic motivation or amotivation.

The purpose of this study was to continue the trend of identifying the course offerings of National Communication Association (NCA) department members started by Wardrope (1999). A curricular profile of U.S. communication departments. "Communication Education," "48"(3), 256-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529909379173 and followed by Bertelsen and Goodboy (2009). Curriculum planning: Trends in communication studies, workplace competencies, and current programs at 4-year colleges and universities. "Communication Education," "58"(2), 262-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520902755458. Supported by an Advancing the Discipline grant obtained by the NCA in 2019, this third iteration identifies the Top 30 course offerings across 322 NCA Department members as of May 2020. The results indicate that over the past three decades, the most currently offered communication courses have remained relatively stable, with the interpersonal communication course remaining the most currently offered course by NCA department members, followed (in this study) by the persuasion, introductory, intercultural, public speaking, organizational, group, research methods, argumentation and debate, and theory courses. Future researchers might extend this line of research by inquiring whether these offered courses are required for the undergraduate degree in communication, a department major or area of emphasis, a department minor, or institutional graduation as well as probe the graduate courses offered by communication departments.

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 practiced their informative speech presentations for either another student or in a virtual environment. Both the test and control groups filled out the Situational Communication Apprehension Measure after their session. Student grades were also collected for participants in each group after their in-class speech presentation. The test group (virtual reality practice) was found to have significantly higher situational communication apprehension than the control group. No significant difference was found for final speech grades between the test and control groups. The significance and implications of these finding are discussed as they related to public-speaking education.

The purpose of this study was to investigate communication mindset changes across one semester of the introductory communication course and differences across students' demographic backgrounds. The study measured the communication mindset and other instructional constructs of 1299 undergraduate students during the first two and last two weeks of the semester. Results showed no change in communication mindset after one semester of the basic course, although public speaking anxiety was reduced, and self-efficacy and interpersonal communication competence increased. Further, results showed between-group differences in public speaking anxiety by gender, as well as differences in mindset and interpersonal communication competence between students of different racial/ethnic backgrounds and different language status. Implications for future research are discussed.

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 communication outcomes including a form of cognitive attention that is conducive of reflection and fosters civic engagement. The essay concludes with a discussion of what is transferable from this case in relation to creating the conditions for situated learning and public address as immersive, embodied experience in communication classrooms.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between mindset theory and public speaking apprehension, interpersonal communication competence, and student engagement in the introductory communication course. The study adapted a mindset theory measure towards specific communication skills. Researchers collected and analyzed data from 1,037 participants gathered at the end of one semester of the introductory communication course. Results showed growth mindset was correlated with higher speech grades, higher interpersonal communication competence, and lower public speaking anxiety. Additionally, multiple regression tests indicated growth mindset and interpersonal communication competence, but not public speaking anxiety, predicted student engagement in the course.

We assessed the effectiveness of an integrated engineering public-speaking class relative to a traditionally taught public-speaking class. The integrated class was designed to meet the growing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics communication needs and the fundamental Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the National Communication Association student outcomes related to public speaking. Working within the Communication in the Disciplines theoretical framework, this study employed a quasi-experiment with both a test (engineering specific communication class) and control (traditional communication class) group; finding a significant increase with respect to attitude toward communication for students before and after the engineering specific class compared with the traditional class. Along with attitude toward communication, efficacy toward communication and being enrolled in the engineering specific class related positively to a sense of engineering identity for students at the end of class. For students enrolled in the engineering specific class, their sense of engineering identity was mediated through an improved attitude toward communication.

Previous studies of grading as instructional feedback reveal contrary patterns of motivation among public speaking students. That is, in some cases students who received lower grades on their initial speech assignments made substantial improvements on their subsequent speeches. In other studies, scholars have reported the exact opposite finding. Inspired by Kluger and DeNisi's ([1996]. The effects of feedback interventions on performance: Historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. "Psychological Bulletin," 119, 254-284) Feedback Intervention Theory, communication scholars have proposed that certain response biases called instructional feedback orientations contribute to these effects. A different explanation emerges from Higgins' ([2012]. "Beyond pleasure and pain: How motivation works." New York: Oxford University) Regulatory Fit Theory, which states that the degree of fit between grades and regulatory focus engenders student engagement. The current study examines these differing explanations for the effort that students intend to exert on future speech assignments after receiving grades on preceding ones. Undergraduates (N = 240) enrolled in basic communication courses completed procedures to induce prevention and promotion regulatory focus and then gave responses to receiving higher or lower grades on classroom public speeches. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided support for both the Regulatory Fit Theory and instructional feedback orientations perspectives. Recommendations for future research and pedagogical practices are described, including framing instructional feedback to align with student regulatory focus.

In this study, we explore the heuristic decision-making skills of undergraduate students as they incorporate information into their persuasive speeches. We interviewed 26 students enrolled in an introductory communication course to ascertain their information literacy for vetting sources for their public speeches. From their responses, we generated four patterns in students' heuristic decision-making when they made appeals to justify or legitimize their selection of evidence within their persuasive public speech. We conclude by discussing our findings in the context of information literacy scholarship and providing pedagogical advice for instructors who teach public speaking in the introductory communication course.

Public-speaking instructors are uniquely positioned to foster a culture of accommodation in their basic course classrooms. A communication course is one that can cause specific types of apprehension, and it is important to recognize that a distinction exists between this and other, broader anxieties that students may be facing. Given this, the authors argue that the introductory course provides a unique space for addressing anxiety-related mental health stigmas; they also illustrate two ways instructors can address these stigmas in their courses. While it is not the job of teachers to psychologically diagnose students, making them aware of resources and accommodations they can utilize may make a difference throughout their college careers and, in some cases, could prevent them from leaving school entirely. Taking this extra step to learn what accommodations are available for students and sharing this information in syllabi is a small step that can have a large effect in promoting student success legally and compassionately through destigmatization of the use of available mental health resources.

This study catalogues student (N = 828) self-described fears related to public speaking. Specifically, this investigation adds to the knowledge of public speaking anxiety through an initial inductive analysis of students' fears about public speaking and a second analysis (of different data) to authenticate emergent categories. Resulting categories included both internal and external fears about public speaking, providing meaningful implications for teaching and learning within the introductory communication course.

The purpose of this study was to compare student growth in public speaking and hybrid introductory communication skills courses on four outcomes: public speaking anxiety, self-perceived communication competence, intercultural effectiveness, and connected classroom climate. This study also sought to find out whether there were differences in the achievement of outcomes and growth in each outcome by sex and ethnicity. Data from 908 participants utilized a within-subjects and between-subjects repeat measures design. Results showed that public speaking and hybrid communication courses reduced public speaking anxiety and increased self-perceived communication competence and connected classroom climate a similar amount, but did not significantly increase intercultural effectiveness for students overall. Small effects were found for sex on all outcomes and for ethnicity on two outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to test whether increasing the relevancy of course assignments in a large multisection introductory public-speaking course would lead to improvements in student perceptions of course outcomes. Survey responses from 1,878 students were analyzed to test whether differences exist between students enrolled in classes held during the spring 2015 semester and those enrolled in classes held in fall 2015 during which the more relevant course assignments were incorporated. Results reveal that increasing the relevancy of assignments is associated with greater perceived course relevance, motivation for participating in the class, and perceptions of learning. This course redesign demonstrates that simply altering course assignments can positively impact student perceptions and motivation for participating in the class in multisection introductory courses.

This study investigated the relationship between public-speaking state anxiety (PSA) and verbal communication performance when delivering a speech. In Study 1, participants delivered an extemporaneous five-minute classroom speech behind a lectern, and in Study 2, to increase cognitive load, participants delivered an extemporaneous five-minute classroom speech peripatetically. In line with attention control theory (ACT), anxiety and verbal performance were found to be unrelated under normal circumstances but inversely related under conditions of significant cognitive load. The project demonstrates the relevance of ACT in disentangling the impact of anxiety on verbal communication performance. An implication for public speakers is that anxiety is unlikely to affect language behavior in typical speaking settings.

This study gathered data about communication centers and built on past investigations of how centers function across the United States. Communication center directors or individuals who oversee centers at two- and four-year institutions of higher education (N = 47) were surveyed. Participants responded to questions about center structure and configuration, logistics and operation, directorship, staff and training, and services. The findings highlight current and changing trends of centers. Overall, this study offers a summative discussion of how centers should be re-envisioned to provide broader impacts for institutions of higher education.

In light of the U.S. Senate's designation of March 15, 2016 as "National Speech and Debate Education Day" (S. Res. 398, 2016), it only seems fitting that "Communication Education" devote a special section to the role of speech and debate in civic education. Speech and debate have been at the heart of the communication discipline in the U.S. since a group of speech professors broke free from English departments to form the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking in 1914 (Gehrke & Keith 2014). Long before that, a rhetorical tradition dating back to the ancients emphasized training in speech and debate as essential to education for citizenship in a democracy. Therefore, leading scholars, teachers, coaches, and program administrators in speech and debate were invited to a conference presented by the Center for Democratic Deliberation, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Communication Association, to reflect on challenges, trends, and opportunities in civic education. The audience of communication scholars agreed that speech and debate education benefits students in many ways; for example: (1) teaching students not only to be better speakers and critical listeners, but also to be more informed, engaged, and responsible citizens; (2) by studying speech and debate, students develop a keen appreciation for solid research, well-reasoned arguments, and effective delivery; (3) students who study speech and debate develop a better understanding of the rights and responsibilities of free speech, and they become more attuned to the threats to our democracy posed by propaganda and demagoguery; and (4) students learn how to solve problems collaboratively, and they develop a better appreciation for the diversity of perspectives and opinions in our complex, multicultural society.

Listeners evaluate well-delivered presentations more positively than those that are poorly delivered. In today's world, presenters often face challenging questions and objections from listeners during or after their presentations. Surprisingly, while there are a number of theoretical reasons to anticipate that how presenters respond to objections and questions will affect listeners' evaluations of speakers, little research has examined this. In two studies, we find that how presenters respond to questions and objections affects audience members' evaluations of speakers as much or more than the quality of delivery of the presentation.

Video continues to be used in many basic communication courses as a way for students to self-evaluate speechmaking. In this study, students (N = 71) presented speeches, viewed the video recordings, and produced self-generated feedback. Comparing student's self-estimated grades from the self-evaluation against earned grades resulted in composite scores that were organized in three estimator categorizations: under-, accurate-, or overestimators. The estimators' feedback was analyzed by new software, the Meaning Extraction Helper, to identify specific themes. The common content words that emerged provided themes that were then inductively categorized. Results indicated unique categories/subcategories for each estimator type and minor subcategory similarities across estimators. Findings discuss estimator perceptions influencing student understanding of their speaking skills.

Imagined interactions (IIs) constitute a type of social cognition that can reduce fear of communication. Through the mental preparation enabled by IIs, an individual can reduce disfluencies and mitigate the anxiety that arises from a speech. Study 1 indicated that rehearsal influences the reduction of silent pauses but not vocalized pauses. In addition, those who reported higher levels of communication apprehension demonstrated more total disfluencies throughout the speech. Study 2 examined how utilizing mixed modes of imagery can affect the rehearsal process in comparison to visualizing (VIS) an encounter alone. The results indicated that a rehearsal consisting of both II training and the mixed modes of imagery resulted in more overall fluency in speech and in higher self-reported speech evaluations.

Despite assessment's prominence in higher education, many communication departments still find its implementation problematic. In this case study, we answer a call for heightened research pertaining to the best practices for assessment of large, multisection, standardized public speaking courses. We demonstrate the ease with which the basic course can be justified to administrators by citing the course's significant reduction of students' Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) as assessed by one of the discipline's standard measures of PSA, the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety. Implications include validation of a course design and assessment that provide administration with measures of significant and salient success, and an especially profound positive impact of the course for women.

Articles published in "Communication Education" ("CE") from 2000 to 2013 yielded four major themes: teacher/instructor to student communication, public speaking, technology, and identity. An analysis of the articles within each major theme revealed a notable absence of research investigating the experiences of students of color and the pedagogical approaches of professors of color in the classroom. Consequently, utilizing muted group and standpoint theories, the authors explore who is heard in "CE," from what standpoint, and how the trend of not publishing race-related research is reproduced.

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 self-efficacy. For each scenario, students estimated the numerical grades they would expect to receive on basic course speaking assignments. Componential analysis (Kenny, 1994) was used to decompose expected speech scores into perceiver, target, and the unique reactions of individual respondents, which respectively accounted for 20.4%, 60.2%, and 19.4% of the variable of interest. Within the target effect, student perceptions of how they had prepared and performed in classroom speaking situations represented the largest single variance subcomponent (31.4%), followed by perceptions of course rigor (23.3%) and teacher immediacy (5.5%). Recommendations for future research and instructional practice are advanced. (Contains 3 notes and 4 tables.)

In response to the demand for increased accountability within the university classroom, there have been calls for a new generation of rubrics that effectively assess students' competence in several areas, including public speaking. This article describes the development, test, and factor analyses of the Public Speaking Competence Rubric (PSCR), an 11-item descriptive rubric designed to be comprehensible to audiences both inside and outside the communication discipline. Study 1, which involved an assessment by five coders of 45 speeches, revealed a complex factor structure and a need to clarify two of the items. Study 2, in which three undergraduate students and one communication faculty person coded 50 speeches, revealed a relatively simple three-factor solution. Comparison of PSCR scores with student speech grades also supported the measure's predictive validity. The last part of the paper describes the potential pedagogical and assessment applications for the PSCR, the limitations of the study, and directions for future research. Overall, the PSCR appears to be a consistent and accurate measure of public speaking ability. (Contains 14 tables.)

The influence of student attitudes toward learning and grades on their communication with instructors about grades has received limited attention despite its potential implications for learning, performance outcomes, and student-teacher interactions. Participants (N = 194) who discussed a disappointing grade with an instructor completed measures of their educational orientations and upward influence choices during the grade conversation. Learning/grade orientation related to the use of explicit and manipulative upward influence tactics, most often in opposite directions. Learning/grade orientation did not interact to influence students' upward influence choices during grade conversations. The study limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

IMPACCT is an online survey covering over 40 self-report types of student communication competency, as well as a test of critical thinking based on cognitive problem-solving. The student nominates two peers who rate the student's interpersonal, computer-mediated, group and leadership, and public speaking communication competence. The student takes the self-report survey at Time 1 (T1), and also at a Time 2 (T2). The system generates a printable profile for the student displaying the following percentiles: (a) T1-Self (i.e., how the student sees self's communication skills in various skill domains at time 1), (b) T2-Self (i.e., how the student's scores changed from T1 to T2), (c) Peers (i.e., how self-rated skills compare to averaged ratings by two peers nominated by the student), and (d) Norms (i.e., how self-rated skills compare to everyone else's self-ratings who has taken the survey). The resulting collective data are available to the department to provide evidence of student self-perceived skill deficits at T1, as well as perceived change from T1 (e.g., beginning of course or major) to T2 (e.g., end of course or major), providing quantifiable data for assessment accounting and reporting. The system was tested on a basic course sample of 1,880 freshmen basic course students and 1,999 affiliated peer raters using a new measure of communication competence developed for this project. All subscales were sufficiently reliable. The self-reported motivation, knowledge, and skills constructs accounted for between 68-72% of student self-perceptions of overall communication competence (i.e., appropriateness, effectiveness, clarity, attractiveness, satisfaction). Critical thinking was unrelated, and peer ratings were only modestly related, to student self-perceptions of communication competence. Student self-perceived skills were systematically lower than peer ratings of students. Students consistently perceived that their communication competence and skills increased significantly over the span of the semester. The system is highly scalable and adaptable to multiple curricular configurations, and shows promise in providing a practical solution to departmental assessment needs. The measure also provides a valuable architecture for significant research and theory development in the area of communication competence. (Contains 4 notes and 7 tables.)

With the goal of identifying the characteristics or traits students bring to the classroom that predispose them to panic when faced with the threat of presenting in front of an audience, this study introduced a subtype of public-speaking state anxiety--anxious arousal. Specifically, this study examined the extent to which trait anxiety and physiological reactivity predicted anxious arousal during a public-speaking presentation. When combined with trait anxiety, physiological reactivity accounted for 73.3% of anxious arousal. Suggestions for pedagogical and therapeutic practice are included. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.)

Successfully evaluating students' work challenges teachers to achieve both corrective task and identity-protection goals in interaction. This study investigated how face-threat mitigation that students received from their teachers during feedback influenced students' judgments about the quality and usefulness of the feedback their instructors provided and their perceptions of those instructors' credibility. Public-speaking students (N=356) at three universities were surveyed about their instructors' feedback regarding their first graded speech that term. Multiple regression analyses showed that receiving attentive facework during instructional feedback predicted students' perceptions that feedback was fair and useful. Skilled instructional facework also predicted students' less defensive responses to criticism and their higher credibility ratings of their instructors. Findings support attentive instructional facework as a communication mechanism whose skillful use aids feedback's reception and integration and enhances instructors' credibility as worthy feedback providers. (Contains 2 tables and 2 notes.)

This study explored the effectiveness of communication training for clergy, working to create an outcomes assessment model for such endeavors. Clergy-participants (N=46) completed an extensive training process designed to increase the transformative quality of their sermon communication. Training outcomes were assessed with a prepost test design, using listener feedback (N=7,564) and expert evaluation. Results suggest that communication training has an impact on the transformative quality of sermon communication. This exploration also reveals a need for further investigation of (1) communication training outcomes assessment and (2) the communicative goal of public speaking in the church context.

Increased public speaking confidence is often cited as a major benefit for undergraduates taking the basic communication course. Several scholars have reported that the state anxiety of novice speakers declines progressively during performance, a phenomenon called within-session habituation. However, the contributions of these short-term reductions in fear to the development of confidence from one speech to the next, or between-sessions habituation, remain unknown. The current study examines brief repeated exposure to audiences as a strategy for creating habituation during public speaking performances in the basic course. One hundred forty undergraduate students enrolled in a required speech performance course participated in a quasi-experimental study in which course lab sections served as intact groups. Results were generally consistent with Foa's emotional processing theory. Implications for basic course pedagogy and suggestions for future research in this area are advanced. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

This study investigated how the face threat mitigation students received from their teachers during feedback influenced their judgments about mentored relationships with their teachers and the supportiveness of the classroom learning environment. Public speaking students (N=345) at three universities completed an online survey about the speech feedback they had received from their instructors throughout that term. Receiving skilled facework during feedback predicted all aspects of perceived mentoring (including satisfaction) and almost all of the supportive learning environment components. Findings support instructional facework as a key communication mechanism by which teachers and students negotiate optimally adaptive and engaging learning relationships and environments. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Attention to presentation technology in the public speaking classroom has grown along with its contemporary use, but instruction generally positions the topic as a subset of visual aids. As contemporary public discourse enters an age of electronic eloquence, instructional focus on verbal communication might limit students' capacity to effectively participate in an evolving public sphere. Instruction that more fully integrates visual, verbal, and haptic forms of communication might provide a better foundation for effective civic participation in the media age. (Contains 2 figures and 4 notes.)

Research investigating public speaking anxiety treatments is subject to demand effects. This study tests the relative effectiveness of systematic desensitization (SD) and multiple treatment method (MT) containing visualization therapy against no-treatment and credible placebo controls. Data (N = 238) were collected at six points in a public speaking class. Reported anxiety decreased over time, but neither treatment outperformed the placebo control. Short-term gains were apparent for the MT group with participants selected on the basis of extreme high scores, but these gains did not persist relative to the control conditions over time. The current data suggest no evidence of lasting improvement of SD or MT treatments over a credible placebo control and enrollment in a standard public speaking class. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 4 notes.)

This seventh in a series of investigations of the basic communication course at 2- and 4-year colleges and universities that began in 1968 has as its purpose to gather longitudinal data on the nature of the course. This latest study differs somewhat from past studies. The survey instrument from 1999 was revised to include timely concerns such as assessment, technology, distance education, and race/ethnicity. The study now reports the data based on course orientation; and, this study's survey was conducted electronically. Data are presented from 306 responding schools covering institutional demographics and (1) Orientation to the Basic Course and Enrollment, (2) Course Administration and Organization, (3) Instruction and Pedagogy, (4) Technology and Distance Education, and (5) Assessment and Evaluation. (Contains 10 tables.)

This essay explores the suburban mythos that dominates the pedagogical scene of public-communication instruction. This scene both narrows the civic meaning of citizenship and constructs an unproblematic environment of professional acceptance. In doing so, it removes any serious discussion of the world of conflicted interests. As a remedy, this essay offers different "representative anecdotes" for public-communication instruction and argues that these alternative scenes create a closer relationship between scholarly theory and the discipline's basic-course instruction. (Contains 1 note.)

The purpose of this study was to examine whether instructor perceptions of student responsive behaviors and student socio-communicative style were related to instructors' subjective (speech presentation) and objective (multiple-choice exam) assessments of student work. The results suggest that student nonverbal and verbal responsive behaviors positively influence instructor assessments of student speech grades accounting for 8% and 11% of the variance, respectively. Instructor perceptions of student socio-communicative style were unrelated to instructor assessments of student speech grades. Neither student responsive behaviors nor student socio-communicative style were related to how well students scored on a cognitive-based, multiple-choice exam assessing public speaking knowledge. (Contains 2 tables.)

This investigation included two studies relating anticipatory public speaking anxiety to the nature of the speech assignment. Based on uncertainty reduction theory, which suggests that communicators are less comfortable in unfamiliar or unpredictable contexts, two hypotheses were advanced on the presumption that various types of assignments in a speech performance course do not produce the same levels of anticipatory anxiety. The hypotheses were supported in both trait and state anxiety studies, where certain differences in narrowband anticipatory speech anxiety were detected among different types of informative speeches: impromptu, extemporaneous, and manuscript reading. These findings extend the tenets of uncertainty reduction theory to the public speaking context and suggest implications for both therapeutic intervention and pedagogical application.

Technology supplements to college textbooks, such as self-guided quizzes and exercises available over the Internet, have become commonplace. The current study examined student perceptions regarding the utility of technology supplements that accompanied a public speaking fundamentals textbook. At semester's end, students reported the supplements to be less useful than they had expected. The supplements were perceived to be more useful by females than by males. The supplements were reported to be more useful when they were required than when they were not. Students perceived technology supplements to be most helpful as study aids and speech preparation tools, but only when they worked properly, were required, and were related directly to course objectives. Instructors are ultimately responsible for ensuring that technology supplements function properly for their students.

Communication Across the Curriculum (CXC) has been gaining theoretical sophistication in recent years, slowly moving beyond an exclusively skills orientation. Proponents of Communication In the Disciplines (CID) focus on teaching students specific disciplinary communication conventions as productive of knowledge and identity. I claim in this essay that the focus of CID on specialized competencies is too narrow. The CXC project should instead emphasize liberal education, which is productive of a multifaceted citizenship. Liberal education can be advanced through strategic use of core styles throughout the curriculum. Core styles of expression, exposition, and persuasion - which are foundational to but transcend disciplinary styles - provide tools for understanding, performing, critiquing, and resisting knowledge and identity production. A dialectic of Communication Against the Disciplines and CID would encourage in students multiple and diverse ways of thinking and doing. Approached this way, CXC can help the student become a model citizen, able to not only argue well for a position but embody a democratic mix of multiple voices, to articulate the world from many positions.

Good design skills are the main focus of assessment practices in design education and are evaluated primarily by drawings and models. In some settings, design studio pedagogy tends to reflect only these content-oriented assessment priorities, with minimal attention paid to the development of oral communication skills. Yet, in many professional contexts, architects need both sets of skills: design competence and the ability to articulate designs for an audience. This paper explores two approaches to oral communication pedagogy in design education--a public speaking approach and a genre-based linguistic approach--and then applies one particular linguistic approach to novice design studio presentations. Based on the findings of this study, we argue that the linguistic, genre-based approach can best offer language-based, discipline-specific description of performance strategies, rhetorical structures, and the linguistic realizations of such structures. Such information can contribute to improved pedagogical practice in the design studio.

Although feedback from teachers to students occupies a central role in learning and instruction, the manner in which feedback functions in performance improvement remains unclear. The current study examined how students' sensitivity to feedback and variations in the wording of feedback messages impacted public speaking performance. Results indicated that students high in feedback sensitivity exhibited preferred speaking behaviors when messages were worded in a manner that was less likely to be taken as a direct, personal criticism (low intensity). Students low in feedback sensitivity appeared to be less adversely impacted by high intensity messages. Overall, markedly different relations between student feedback sensitivity and speaking behaviors appeared for students exposed to high intensity feedback messages compared with students exposed to low feedback intensity.

Although the class in advanced public speaking is a mainstay of communication instruction, little scholarship has addressed the nature of expertise in public speaking or the instructional techniques by which it is imparted. The present study conducted in-depth interviews with 23 active college teachers of advanced public speaking, inquiring specifically about their goals, curriculum, and classroom activities for the class and the ways in which these were distinguished from the basic speech class. Qualitative thematic analysis yielded six distinctive themes: (1) extensive speaking performance and individualized critique, (2) learning additional genres, (3) learning additional theory, (4) intensive study of models, (5) extensive self-analysis, and (6) sophisticated processes for analyzing speaking situations. Two broad pedagogical tensions, both with classical roots, attend these issues: (1) the tension between teaching theory and facilitating practice and (2) the tension between teaching forms of speaking and teaching rhetorical processes.

Previous research suggests that college students bring gender biases to their evaluations of male and female instructors. Increasingly, college oral communication classes are utilizing peer evaluation of student speeches. This study of 330 student evaluators at a Midwestern university examined gender bias in student peer evaluations of public speeches. Findings indicated that neither speaker sex nor sex of the student evaluator affected overall ratings of speaking competence. Formality of attire, however, did influence the ratings and types of comments provided to speakers. Speaker sex did influence the degree to which evaluators were persuaded and the types of comments given by student evaluators, however. Positive open-ended comments about female speakers were limited to remarks about quality of external sources, whereas positive comments addressed to male speakers covered a wider range of attributes. In general, results encourage use of peer evaluations of public speaking performance, since they appear to be relatively immune to extraneous biases.

Recent biological theories of state anxiety have focused on temperament and neurophysiology as factors that predispose some people to be particularly at risk of debilitating levels of performance anxiety. The present study extends Gray's (1982; Gray & McNaughton, 2000) reinforcement sensitivity theory by proposing a linkage between sensitivity to punishment and negative explanatory style as predisposing students to anxiety during public speaking. Sensitivity to punishment and negative explanatory style combined to predict 38.2% of the variance in state anxiety during public speaking. Evaluation and grading pervade public speaking instruction and are potentially punishing forms of reinforcement. Therefore, educators should take account of personality differences among students and use more descriptive than evaluative feedback when addressing students high in sensitivity to punishment and negative explanatory style.

Learning to engage in civil discourse requires students to maintain an openness to new points of view and attitude change. In a public speaking course based on principles of civil discourse, classroom procedures were designed to foster subjective reframing by engaging students in the disorienting exercise of supporting multiple perspectives on the same topic. Based on extensive coding of listeners' journals, speakers' videotaped reports, and pre-/postassessments of attitudes toward controversial topics, results warranted the conclusion that public speaking courses may be better designed for speaker transformation than for listener transformation. Overall results have implications for educators designing public speaking courses and those interested in preparing students to participate in civil, robust, and effective public discourse. In particular, more potent methods for engaging students as listeners need to be implemented.

In the present study, it was hypothesized that (1) changes in (1) state anxiety from rest to the beginning of a speech (sensitization), in (2) changes in state anxiety during the first minute of the speech presentation (habituation 1), and in (3) state anxiety during the last minute of the speech presentation (habituation 2) are all significant predictors of college students' state anxiety during public speaking. Results indicated that both sensitization and habituation 1 were significant predictors, together accounting for 68% of the variance in overall state anxiety scores during speech performance. Changes in anxiety during the last minute of the speech (habituation 2) did not contribute significantly to the prediction of overall state anxiety. Educators need to adopt a variety of classroom techniques to help students reduce initial sensitization and to foster early habituation in public speaking practice.