The purposes of this study were (a) to develop a new measure to assess doctoral advisees' use of relational maintenance behaviors with their advisors, and (b) to examine both advisees' (n = 636) and advisors' (n = 141) perceptions of their mentoring relationship using mentoring enactment theory (MET; Kalbfleisch, 2002). The results of…

The current study examined the memorable messages first-generation college students received from their on-campus mentors about college and family. Accordingly, 30 first-generation college students shared mentors' memorable messages during in-depth, semistructured, responsive interviews. Four hundred sixty-seven pages of transcripts were analyzed…

Tutors often fail to address learners' misconceptions. Although this may indicate a failure to grasp these misconceptions, it may simply be due to a wish to be polite and save the learner's face. In this study we examined whether instructing tutors about the pitfalls of politeness could increase the clarity and precision of their tutorial…

This case study of the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland demonstrates the need to consider course sequencing in the communication curriculum. The investigation assessed whether the order in which undergraduates took courses predicted grade performance. Students' (N = 6,166) grade data from earlier courses were used to…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain who the most prolific scholars (top one percent) in Communication Studies were as a function of their publication rates in 24 journals for the last five years. In addition, we sought to determine the most prolific scholars in a subset of journals considered to be most central to our discipline. Results…

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…

The purpose of this study was to investigate if college students' verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness traits promote their tendencies to engage in instructional dissent (i.e., expressive, rhetorical, vengeful). Participants were 172 undergraduate students who completed a self-report survey measuring these traits and their dissent practices…

The purpose of this study was to investigate college teachers' experiences of relational turning points with their students, as well as how these turning point events may affect teacher outcomes. Teachers who were able to identify a relational turning point event with a student (n=306, 78.5% of the overall sample) completed open- and closed-ended…

The primary goal of this project is to provide a summary of extant research regarding humor in the classroom, with an emphasis on identifying and explaining inconsistencies in research findings and offering new directions for future studies in this area. First, the definitions, functions, and main theories of humor are reviewed. Next, the paper…

Instructors routinely provide feedback for students concerning the work the students produce as part of a classroom course. Although such information is required of instructors and expected by students, the communication of feedback creates a potentially face-threatening interaction in which the student's self-esteem may be diminished and/or the…

This article presents the Instructional Beliefs Model which forwards that teacher behaviors, student characteristics, and course-specific structural issues combine to influence students' instructional beliefs. Through these instructional beliefs, the first-order variables influence student learning outcomes. Three studies were conducted to…

Similar to many courses in communication, oral communication is central to the learning goals in the discipline of design. Design critiques, the primary communication activity in design classrooms, occur in every studio course multiple times. One key feature of the critique, as an oral genre, is the amount of time and emphasis placed on feedback.…

The purpose of this study was to show how instructor use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors influence Hispanic students' affective learning in ninth-grade writing conferences, regardless of the level of feedback sensitivity provided. According to Kluger and DeNisi's (1996) feedback intervention theory, when feedback is direct and targeted on the…

Using predicted outcome value theory as a guide, this study investigated the link between e-mail correspondence as a form of computer mediated extra class communication and how it may shape students' desire to foster student-teacher relational development. The findings revealed that when students believe their teacher e-mails the class frequently,…

Communication in the disciplines (CID) is a model of situated pedagogy that prepares students for the communication demands of their professional work. A defining feature of CID is its "situatedness." Communication is meant to uphold, not disrupt, disciplinary norms surrounding communication outcomes, genres, and assessment. However, by upholding…