Where Do You Turn? Student-Identified Resources in the Basic Course Experience, Sources of Information, Feedback, and Help-Seeking Behaviors

This study explored the formal and informal resources students enrolled in a basic communication course use to gather information and receive feedback about their course experience, including presentations and work in the class. To do so, an online survey was completed by 393 students at three universities. The data were analyzed thematically using an iterative process facilitated through NVivo coding software. This process not only allowed for a descriptive summary of the students' responses and the creation of a typology of resources, but also revealed four emergent themes related to student-provided explanations for differing uses and descriptions of sources of information/feedback: (1) being readily available, (2) providing personalized feedback, (3) being credible and authoritative, and (4) providing examples. Taken together, these findings inform practical implications about information literacy, availability of vetted examples, and family/friend involvement, all of which are important for basic course administrators and instructors to consider in order to support student success and learning in the basic communication course classroom.