Derek R. Lane

The Centrality of Communication Education in Classroom Computer-Mediated-Communication: Toward a Practical and Evaluative Pedagogy.

The case is made here that a more balanced pedagogical perspective for use of computer‐mediated‐communication (CMC) must be created by the communication discipline in order to assure its centrality as the key academic source and authority on CMC. A more balanced pedagogy will address both practical and evaluative concerns. The practical concerns are primarily tied to access, judicious use, and potential consequences associated with CMC. Evaluative concerns illustrate the primacy of crafting a clear cost‐benefit equation for usage, the focus of appropriate skepticism and criticism, and development of clear assessment standards. There is a path to a clear pedagogical agenda that can ensure the communication disciplines’ proper role in the academy at large.

Impulsivity and Academic Cheating

The authors examined the relations between academic cheating and impulsivity in a large sample of adolescents enrolled in high school health education classes. Results indicated that impulsivity predicts academic cheating for students who report extensive involvement in cheating. However, students who engage in extensive cheating are less likely to report cheating when they perceive a mastery goal structure. In addition, both moderate and extensive cheaters report less cheating when they perceive the teacher as being credible.

An Extension of the Activation Model of Information Exposure: The Addition of a Cognitive Variable to a Model of Attention

The principal objective of this article is to offer an extended theoretical framework for further development of persuasive message design for media-based health campaigns. Drawing upon considerable convergent evidence that attention to and processing of persuasive messages is a function of both cognitive and biologically based processes, we consider implications for attention and processing from an extension of the activation model of information exposure through the addition of a cognitive variable associated with the elaboration likelihood model, need for cognition. The overall goal is to determine how target audiences are optimally influenced with persuasive health information that attracts and holds attention, triggers information processing, and eventually brings about behavior change.

A review and assessment of national educational trends in communication instruction

At a time when many people, communication education professionals included, seem nearly obsessed with trends, it is especially important to raise critical questions about both what the trends are and how the discipline should respond. This work provides an overview of trends at the national and higher education levels as well as in undergraduate communication education. It examines three dominant trends‐interactive teaching and learning, use of teams, and use of computer technology—which have emerged at all three levels. Finally, it encourages critical assessment of those and all other trends.

The Value of Instructional Communication in Crisis Situations: Restoring Order to Chaos

This article explores the nature of instructional communication in responding to crisis situations. Through the lens of chaos theory, the relevance of instructional messages in restoring order is established. This perspective is further advanced through an explanation of how various learning styles impact the receptivity of various instructional messages during the acute phase of crises. We then summarize an exploratory study focusing on the relationship between learning styles and the demands of instructional messages in crisis situations. We conclude the article with a series of conclusions and implications.

A Receiver‐Based Approach to Effective Instructional Crisis Communication

Much research has informed the development of a valuable series of sender‐focused best practices for effective crisis communication. Relatively little crisis communication research, however, focuses on receiver‐focused best practices as related to eliciting appropriate actions before, during and after crisis events. Because effective instructional communication is measured by learner (i.e., receiver) outcome achievement of affective (perceived value), cognitive (comprehension) and behavioural (performance) variables, this study examined perceived message effectiveness and behavioural intention using the IDEA model of instructional risk and crisis communication. Results of this comparative quasi‐experimental study revealed that messages integrating all elements of the IDEA model were more effective than status quo messages and point to the need for continued research on effective instructional crisis communication message design.

Defining rules and roles in instructional contexts: A preliminary assessment of student perceptions

The classroom across the academy suffers from a most unbalanced approach to instructional research. The vast majority of instructional research is grounded squarely in an instructors point of view. The student perspective is often neglected or ignored. Adding a more robust student perspective to scholarly discourse on the rules and roles, the various procedural and behavioral patterns that emerge over time, appropriate to our understanding of the classroom would move us toward a more balanced understanding of the phenomena. This study employs a triangulated method to examine the views of rules and roles in the classroom held by 155 student participants. Results suggest that students view their own demands for rule‐following and role behavior as far less rigorous than those they perceive for instructors. The findings suggest that an overall re‐orientation of instruction to better facilitate classroom communication may well be in order.

Comparing the Efficacy of Permanent Classroom Teachers to Temporary Health Educators for Pregnancy and HIV Prevention Instruction

Ninth grade health education classrooms were randomly assigned to conditions in which a 14-lesson unit on HIV and pregnancy prevention was provided either by the permanent classroom teacher or by a temporary health educator. Student data were collected prior to the lessons and approximately 3 weeks after the completion of the unit. Results indicate that students who learned the unit from the classroom teacher reported that that the instructor was more likeable and credible and that the classrooms were more motivational. Sexually active adolescents with regular classroom teachers reported greater increases in frequency of class discussion.

Dimensions and Validation of a Perceived Message Cognition Value Scale

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a perceived message cognition value (PMCV) scale and provide preliminary evidence concerning its reliability and validity. The manuscript presents PMCV as a theoretical construct consisting of three distinct dimensions: cognitive challenge, credibility, and clarity. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a significant three-factor solution, and SEM confirmed a significant second-order model that accounted for variations in the three dimensions. Composite scale and subscale reliabilities are presented, and composite scale/subscale stability across psychographic and message variables is demonstrated. The manuscript concludes with an argument that a reliable and valid PMCV scale can aid persuasion researchers in designing more effective health behavior change messages.

Inception: Beginning a New Conversation about Communication Pedagogy and Scholarship

Drawing on past pedagogical and scholarly lines of inquiry, this article advances—in a dialogic form—several questions for future research and practice in areas of communication, teaching, and learning. The dialogic form of this article offers a metamessage, inviting colleagues to consider creative approaches to inquiry and collaboration in the 21st century. The ideas and questions presented in this essay serve to push the field beyond disciplinary silos, advance research and pedagogy about teaching and learning, and offer thought-provoking insight into what scholars and practitioners who explore communication, teaching, and learning can contribute to those inside and outside of our discipline.