This article presents the authors' response to Hewes's (1986, 1996, 2009) models of communication effects on small group outcomes. As sophisticated and thoughtful as Hewes's new model is, however, the authors take issue with it. For one, there is reason to question whether his approach is feasible. For another, his models are not founded on solid…

Periodic assessment and scrutiny of the discipline's measurement practices, instruments, and research findings are necessary to provide clarity and direction by revealing what we know, how we know it, and where the knowledge gaps exist. Reflective reviews have produced ample appraisals of the theory, research, and methods employed in the conduct…

Objective: Students will develop positive attitudes toward communication research by linking new values and principles with the familiar values and principles contained in children's literature. Course: Communication Research Methods.

Journal citations are increasingly used as indicators of the impact of scholarly work. Because many communication journals are not included in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), SSCI impact factors are potentially misleading for communication journals. The current paper reports a citation analysis of 30 communication journals based on…

Most communication research on bad news messages focuses on crisis communication, where attention is often limited to image repair strategies. The authors argue that a key indicator of an organization's effectiveness in communicating "bad news" messages is its organizational culture. Developing an organizational culture that values positive…

This article presents the author's response to Professor Hewes's "The Influence of Communication Processes on Group Outcomes: Antithesis and Thesis." The author believes that Hewes could have been more helpful to the reader and to those who are apt to find inspiration in the steps he has taken in his essay to promote a "return to basic theorizing…

This article describes how 2 classrooms of 4-year-old children incorporated popular media (cartoons, television shows, video games, movies, and music) into their conversations with peers during writing. The findings assert that (a) children naturally incorporate popular culture into their writing, (b) children include popular culture in their…

Cooperative learning has increasingly become a popular form of active pedagogy employed in academic institutions. This case study explores the relationship between cooperative learning and academic performance in higher education, specifically in the field of communication. Findings from a questionnaire administered to undergraduate students in a…

It is well-established that language skills are amongst the best predictors of educational success. Consistent with this, findings from a population-based longitudinal study of parents and children in the UK indicate that language development at the age of two years predicts children's performance on entering primary school. Moreover, children who…

Has research by communication scholars made a difference in the practices or outcomes of communication in society? The author's answer to this question is based on her belief that there are three distinct ways in which communication research has made a difference, not all of which fit the traditional definitions of translational research. To…

Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is the most widely accepted and frequently used approach to statistical inference in quantitative communication research. NHST, however, is highly controversial, and several serious problems with the approach have been identified. This paper reviews NHST and the controversy surrounding it. Commonly…

The recent increase in short messaging system (SMS) text messaging, often using abbreviated, non-conventional "textisms" (e.g. "2nite"), in school-aged children has raised fears of negative consequences of such technology for literacy. The current research used a paradigm developed by Dixon and Kaminska, who showed that exposure to phonetically…

As a means to involve the public in research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Partners in Research Program and solicited research grant applications from academic/scientific institutions and community organizations that proposed to forge partnerships: (a) to study methods and strategies to engage and inform the public…

The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to investigate whether bilingualism confers an advantage on children's conversational understanding. A total of 163 children aged 3-6 years were given a Conversational Violations Test to determine their ability to identify responses to questions as violations of Gricean maxims of conversation…

This project is situated within the interpretive tradition in organizational communication research, focusing on organizational discourse. It goes further by bringing the discussion into the 21st century through examining how communication technology--specifically e-mail--plays a role in the linguistic practices that help create, maintain and…