Jon A. Hess

Attentive Facework During Instructional Feedback: Key to Perceiving Mentorship and an Optimal Learning Environment

This study investigated how the face threat mitigation students received from their teachers during feedback influenced their judgments about mentored relationships with their teachers and the supportiveness of the classroom learning environment. Public speaking students (N =345) at three universities completed an online survey about the speech feedback they had received from their instructors throughout that term. Receiving skilled facework during feedback predicted all aspects of perceived mentoring (including satisfaction) and almost all of the supportive learning environment components. Findings support instructional facework as a key communication mechanism by which teachers and students negotiate optimally adaptive and engaging learning relationships and environments.

Are Student Self-Reports a Valid Method for Measuring Teacher Nonverbal Immediacy?

This project was undertaken to address the question of whether student reports are a valid way to measure teacher nonverbal immediacy. In response to concerns about psychometric shortcomings of available immediacy measures, Study 1 was conducted to refine the items used to measure teacher immediacy. The resulting set of 8 items, Nonverbal Immediacy in College Classroom Instruction (NICCI), has two correlated factors: affiliation and animation. In Study 2, student reports of teacher immediacy using the NICCI were compared with observer-coded videotapes of the instructors. The results showed a nonsignificant association (r=−.15) between student reports and coded observations. These findings fail to support the common presumption that student reports are a valid way to measure teacher immediacy behaviors.

Earning Influence by Communicating Respect: Facework's Contributions to Effective Instructional Feedback.

Successfully evaluating students’ work challenges teachers to achieve both corrective task and identity-protection goals in interaction. This study investigated how face-threat mitigation that students received from their teachers during feedback influenced students’ judgments about the quality and usefulness of the feedback their instructors provided and their perceptions of those instructors’ credibility. Public-speaking students (N=356) at three universities were surveyed about their instructors’ feedback regarding their first graded speech that term. Multiple regression analyses showed that receiving attentive facework during instructional feedback predicted students’ perceptions that feedback was fair and useful. Skilled instructional facework also predicted students’ less defensive responses to criticism and their higher credibility ratings of their instructors. Findings support attentive instructional facework as a communication mechanism whose skillful use aids feedbacks reception and integration and enhances instructors’ credibility as worthy feedback providers.

Verbal Communication about Sex in Marriage: Patterns of Language Use and Its Connection with Relational Outcomes

This study examined the vocabulary husbands and wives use for talking to each other about sex, and connections between language use and relational qualities. Married people (n = 293) responded to a questionnaire about their use of common sex-related terms and about several characteristics of their marriage: sexual communication satisfaction, relational satisfaction, and relational closeness. Cluster analysis based on reported use revealed that sexual terms fell into clusters characterized as clinical terms, slang, or standard English. Results showed an association between use of sexual terms, particularly slang terms, and both satisfaction and closeness. This connection was stronger for women than for men. The findings offer insight into sexual talk and marital relationships.

Editor's Introduction: Interrogating the Darkness

This past Christmas, Katherine Hendrix received her first smartphone: a Nokia Lumia 830. This phone operates on the Microsoft Windows platform, and its face boasts a series of brightly colored squares (known as tiles) as entry points to various functions, such as email, text messages, and apps for services, including Hulu, Amazon, and eBay. Once her excitement ebbed and her knowledge of working the phone increased, she rearranged the default setting of predominantly blue tiles on the primary screen for more color variety, adding purple and white, with a hint of green, to signal scrolling down to the next set of tiles. As time passed, she even created (pinned) a third set of tiles for functions that were important enough to land a position on the primary screen but not so important as to merit immediate view. And so it is with disciplinary journals. The publications board, founding editor, and editorial board members decide the “default” content of a new disciplinary journal. Fifty years ago, the default for Communication Education—then called The Speech Teacher—was the teaching of public speaking. Over time, the tiles have been reconfigured to include a broad scope of issues pertaining to any aspect of the interface between communication and learning. However, betwixt and between these bright tiles is darkness. In fact, the tiles gain their brightness, in part, because they are set against a black background, and in that darkness, unexamined possibilities exist. Evidence of such possibility surfaces periodically for Katherine when she touches a tile accidentally and notices that it has moved from its original position, or becoming unpinned, and disappeared from sight altogether. Instead of neat rows of tiles an empty black space vies for her attention, and a decision must be made. What is to fill the void: old or new? Is the old really as important as she once believed, or have her priorities shifted, necessitating something new? Throughout the history of Communication Education, scholars have sometimes shifted the tiles, allowing a glimpse of something new; something important that was hidden previously in the darkness—locked between the colorful tiles, in full view but yet

How Much Do We Really know About Equity's Impact on Relational Communication? Issues in Measuring Equity in Communication Research

This study examined the question of whether the short global measure of equity that is typically used in communication research has fidelity to the manner in which equity was originally conceptualized. Participants were 100 pairs of college students in close relationships. They reported equity in their relationships using Hatfields 1-item measure and also a component measure calculated with Walster et al.s original formula for computing equity. The two measures correlated only r  =  .28 (students) and .26 (partners). Correlations between these measures and other relational properties that are theoretically related (e.g., satisfaction, closeness) did not provide definitive support for either measure as being a valid measure of equity. These findings have significant implications for study of equity and relational communication, especially relational maintenance, because they cast question on how valid our measurement of equity has actually been.

Forum: The Common Core

The subject of how to strengthen primary and secondary education in the United States is widely discussed in news and popular media. While an extensive range of opinions have been expressed, the common thread is that these issues are normally situated in the domain of politicians and K-12 teachers. Primary and secondary education are rarely addressed by scholars who publish in Communication Education. This divide between Communication researchers in higher education and K-12 practitioners reflects generally weak connections between the two domains. As seems fitting for our changing times, that situation is also ripe for change. In tandem with the rapid evolution of higher education, primary and secondary education are undergoing a transformation of their own. One of the more significant events in recent years is the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by many states. This new set of standards has the potential to significantly impact our discipline either positively or negatively, depending on how we respond during this implementation phase. At present, it appears that few scholars are paying careful attention. Implementation of the CCSS represents an opportunity for our discipline. Oral communication has historically had little place in the K-12 curriculum despite its acknowledged centrality in both social and workplace contexts. The inclusion of oral communication in the CCSS marks the first time our discipline can play a significant role in the curriculum students take prior to college. That inclusion is a major victory for our discipline, and if the copious evidence of our subject matter’s importance is to be believed, it is also a major victory for the American public. The adoption of the CCSS presents a golden opportunity for our discipline to contribute in new and important ways. At the same time, prevailing structures will not automatically insert Communication programs into this process. Without a proactive effort by scholars in our field while curriculum is being created, the oral communication elements of the curriculum will likely be developed by personnel from English and other disciplines who are more strongly connected to K-12 education. Will they provide the same quality of knowledge, teacher development, and curriculum planning our discipline could provide? I am skeptical. At the same time, without a clear vision of how Communication Education Vol. 64, No. 2, April 2015, pp. 241–260

Sexual Goals-Plans-Actions: Toward a Sexual Script in Marriage

This study introduces a sexual script in heterosexual marriage, based on interviews with 12 married women and 13 married men. The qualitative data analysis revealed a two-phase sexual script, beginning with priming messages and culminating in synchronizing messages. Synchronizing messages took one of three forms—in-synch, token acceptance, or out-of-synch. In-synch messages showed alignment between an initiation message and an acceptance message such that a sexual episode occurred. Token acceptance messages, made by women, conveyed compliance with a sexual episode despite low desire. Out-of-synch messages rejected an initiation message.

Closing reflections: observations from service as editor

Until stepping into the role, it is hard to appreciate what a privilege it is to edit a journal, particularly a journal that leads a specific area of study. Instructional communication (IC) has always held a special place for me, as it was teaching that drew me into higher education, and it is the educational process that continues to drive my scholarly interest. Having spent three years stewarding Communication Education, I would like to conclude my term with some reflections on the field of instructional communication and on the practice of editing.

Acknowledgements for volumes 64–66

I cannot overstate how indebted I am to my reviewers for prompt, insightful, and constructively written reviews. They exceeded all of my expectations. The reviewers are the engine that makes the entire operation run. While members of the Review Board handled the bulk of the reviewing, I also had to rely on the goodwill of many scholars outside the board. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to both bodies of scholars.