Teaching democratic citizenship has never been more vital, particularly given the dismissive attitude and direct attempts to undermine democratic institutions exemplified by the Trump administration. In addition, traditional approaches to teaching citizenship foreground the underlying values of self-governance, knowledge of the different branches…

In this brief forum article, the author suggests studying the instructor-student relationship as a superior-subordinate relationship offers an alternative way to view how student learning occurs in the college classroom, and can provide instructional communication researchers with the opportunity to explore how structural and institutional…

Objective: The authors examined college students' day-to-day health communication experiences. Participants: A convenience sample of 109 midwestern university students participated in the study. Methods: The participants completed health communication diaries for 2 weeks, generating 2,185 records. Frequent health topics included nutrition and…

Studies on classroom interaction have typically focused on relationships between turn-taking patterns and some larger unit of analysis of varying length and nature. However, two questions still left unanswered are how teachers talk differently from students in general and how linguistic variation between two participants might relate to…

This study investigates cultural and communication medium effects on conversational argumentation in a decision-making context. Chinese and U.S. participants worked in pairs on two decision-making tasks via face-to-face (FtF) and instant messaging (IM). The analyses showed that Chinese participants tended to engage in potentially more complex…

Discusses four themes that emerged from grandparents' written accounts of conversations with their college-aged grandchildren. Argues that expressions of affiliation, pride, exchange (of advice and information), and feeling distance from their grandchildren are fundamental elements of the relationship from the grandparents' perspectives. (SR)

Presents a review of existing taxonomies of communication strategies and results of related research involving a focus group of 68 students, which aimed to discover new strategies within the (Croatian) culture which has evaded foreign researchers. Declares that nine strategies emerged and quantifies the new strategies. Discusses differences…

Investigates the effect of reticence on college students' use of electronic mail to communication with faculty. Notes the difference in the frequency of using electronic mail by reticent and non-reticent students. Considers how reticent students prefer to use electronic mail over speaking to faculty at their offices. (SG)

Focuses attention on the potential of deliberation for citizenship training in the academy. Offers lessons learned from case studies of courses in communication and political science to demonstrate the degree to which problems faced with deliberation in the wider population manifest themselves in the classroom. Presents examples of how these…

Despite theoretical arguments that avoiding certain topics can be functional, there is consistent evidence that avoiding topics tends to be associated with dissatisfying relationships. This disparity between theory and empirical findings suggests a need to understand better the connection between topic avoidance and relational dissatisfaction. The…

Argues for a reconsideration of rumor from an interpretive perspective and articulates a theoretical perspective that combines organizational culture with Burke's guilt-purification-redemption cycle. Concludes that students use rumor to make sense of and to cope with problematic aspects of their university-life pertaining to roommates, academic…

This article reports the findings of a 3 year research project which investigated disciplinary variation in student writing. Within an Open University course in the history of science, students from an arts background were found to achieve significantly higher grades than those from a science background. Textual and interview data suggest that…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing (n=231) used the Language Background Questionnaire (LBQ) to self assess their sign language and spoken communication skills. Formal independent estimates of these skills were also conducted. Comparison of results indicates a high degree of congruence between the self and formal assessments, which…