Paul E. King

Public Speaking Performance Improvement as a Function of Information Processing in Immediate and Delayed Feedback Interventions.

Treatments of performance feedback in the communication literature have generally focused on the pragmatic advantages of such systems while remaining uncritical of the information processing context in which such instructional interventions are employed. Communication theorists have distinguished between tasks that require conscious deliberation and tasks that are executed automatically. In the present study, the efficacy of using immediate and delayed feedback in generating improvement on a subsequent performance, for tasks which vary in information processing requirements, was examined. Analyses indicate that immediate feedback intervention is more effective when automatic processing occurs while delayedfeedback produces greater change with tasks involving deliberative and effortful processing. Interpretation of the findings, in light of extant theory and research, is provided.

Teacher Immediacy, Confidence Testing, and the Measurement of Cognitive Learning

There is much disagreement among instructional communication scholars concerning the appropriate means to measure cognitive learning. Significant differences have emerged between studies that rely on perceptual versus performance measures of learning and the issue has been the subject of much recent debate in research on teacher immediacy. The present study sought to compare instruments commonly used to assess perceived learning (learning loss measure) and performed learning (course grades) with an additional approach to cognitive learning assessment known as confidence testing. All of these measures were compared with student perceptions of teacher immediacy. Results indicate that confidence testing scores are significantly associated with both course grades and perceived learning. Implications for research involving cognitive learning are discussed.

The communication of public speaking anxiety

The relationship between beginning speakers’ self‐reported speech state anxiety and audience perceptions of that anxiety, during public speaking performances are investigated in this study. The results indicate that untrained audiences are not proficient at detecting the self‐perceived state anxiety of beginning speakers. Moreover, audiences perceive speaker anxiety levels to be lower, during performance, than the speakers themselves report. Implications of the findings for students and instructors of public speaking are suggested.

The Instructional Feedback Orientation Scale: Conceptualizing and Validating a New Measure for Assessing Perceptions of Instructional Feedback

Theoretical perspectives on the efficacy of instructional feedback suggest that there should be significant variation in students’ perceptions of and responses to feedback messages. Yet, little effort has been made to either uncover the perceptual dimensions by which students evaluate feedback, or to measure students’ perceptions of feedback. The present project sought to accomplish these tasks by using factor analytic procedures to classify student perceptions of feedback. The results of Study One produced a pilot inventory that included four dimensions: feedback utility, sensitivity, confidentiality, and retention. In Study Two, a confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor solution, and the results of correlation analyses provided initial evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity for the new scale. Theoretically, the results extend feedback intervention theory. Pragmatically, the results offer a new measure useful for understanding students’ predispositions toward instructional feedback.

Problems Associated With Evaluating Student Performance In Groups

Using small groups in student cooperative learning enterprises has become a major trend in American higher education (Cheng and Warren 2000). However, several practical issues involving the assessment of an individuals performance in groups have sometimes created resistance to the method from both students and parents (Kagan 1995). This article evaluates the case for using cooperative group assignments and the problems associated with evaluating the performances of individuals working in groups. Practical suggestions for minimizing some of the potential problems associated with group grading are offered and some philosophic perspectives on this form of grading are advanced.

Contagion theory and the communication of public speaking state anxiety

Previous empirical research has shown that speech state anxiety is communicated from a speaker to audience members, at a nominal level, in public speaking settings. This article reports on research into the communication of speech state anxiety between adjacent speakers in the speaking order. Based on classical response contagion theory, the researchers predicted a positive relationship. The findings support that expectation, suggesting that public speaking state anxiety is contagious. The article discusses possible consequences of these findings and advances suggestions for future research.

Automatic Responses, Target Resistance, and the Adaptation of Compliance-Seeking Requests

Based upon politeness theory and a cognitive rules perspective, it is argued that anticipated resistance to a persuasive message should effect compliance-seeking message behavior. Using controlled interviews to elicit persuasive messages, results indicate that persuaders used a greater number of strategies when confronting a positively predisposed target who refused to comply. Beyond an initial opening gambit, negative sanctions were employed more extensively against positively predisposed targets. Overall, a pattern of compliance-gaining behaviors involving a gradual shift to negative sanctions was observed. The findings are explained in light of current perspectives on information processing, possibly shedding light on past failures to find evidence of strategic adaptation based on situational factors.

Mindfulness, mindlessness and communication instruction

In recent years scholars have pondered the extent to which communicators are consciously mindful of message production during interpersonal encounters. Evidence that nonconscious, or mindless, verbal behavior permeates human interaction violates the assumptions of some communication scholars and many traditional approaches to pedagogy. Advances in cognitive neurosciences and in communication theory account for both mindful and mindless communicative behavior. Suggestions are offered for integrating the mindfulness‐mindlessness concept of awareness into interpersonal communication research and pedagogy.

Compliance‐gaining strategies, communication satisfaction, and willingness to comply

Research on compliance‐gaining strategies has focused more on communication sources than on receivers’ willingness to comply with messages. In this study, targets’ satisfaction with and willingness to comply with 12 strategy types, under conditions varying in level of intimacy, were investigated. Results indicate that strategies employing negative sanctions were least likely to produce willingness to comply and were also the least preferred by receivers. Moreover, these strategies also produced the least receiver satisfaction. A significant relationship was found between communication satisfaction and receivers’ willingness to comply. Perceptions of relational distance between source and receiver did not effect satisfaction with or willingness to comply with messages. Implications for future research are suggested.

Computerized speech criticism

The purpose of this article is to examine the utility of using computers to reduce the frustration and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the teacher preparing written evaluations of speech performances.