Charles M. Rossiter

Instruction in Metacommunication.

The author suggests that “metacommunication” may serve as a central organizing concept around which instructional units in interpersonal communication may be organized and that the improvement of students’ capacities to metacommunicate is an important skill which instruction in interpersonal communication should seek to develop. Metacommunication is defined, its functions are discussed, a conceptual outline of related topics is offered, and a mode of instruction is suggested.

The Effects of Reading Practice with Compressed Speech on Reading Rate and Listening Comprehension

ConclusionsReading practice with accompanying compressed speech as a pacer resulted in a significantly greater increase in reading rate without an accompanying loss in comprehension for the experimental group when compared with the control group. Scores on the delayed posttest seemed to indicate that the increase in reading rate was more than temporary.The significant increase in reading rate was accomplished with only 10 practice sessions. The number of sessions in earlier studies using pacers ranged from 16 (Marvel, 1959) to 50 (Wilson & Leavell, 1956). The present study suggests that a smaller number of sessions using compressed speech as a pacer can be effective in increasing reading rate.Since there was no significant difference between gain scores for the experimental and control groups for listening, this study provided no evidence to support the use of practice with compressed speech to improve listening ability. It might be noted however that the training sessions consisted of reading short storieswhile listening to the compressed speech. Thus, subjects did not receive practice in which listening to compressed speech was the sole activity. It is perhaps for this reason that the experimental group did not improve more in listening than did the control group.

Models of paradigmatic change

Processes of revolution, evolution, and migration offer differing explanations of scientific knowledge development and paradigm shifts. Communication is an emerging a paradigmatic discipline attempting to move to the preparadigmatic stage. To the extent that this symposium makes differences among theoretical bases for inquiry public and debatable it is applauded as a positive step in the maturing process of our discipline.