Renee E. Strom

Some Effects of Video Streaming on Educational Achievement.

Although much contemporary thinking leads to the expectation that communication technology, such as video streaming, enhances educational performance on the average, a dearth of strong evidence consistent or inconsistent with this claim precludes a thoughtful evaluation of it. A series of experiments designed to examine this proposition contributes to filling this lacuna. Third- and eighth-grade students either received or did not receive exposure to one such application, unitedstreaming™, in either their science or social studies classes (or both). Results indicated that this video-streaming application resulted in higher mean examination performance in third-grade science, third-grade social studies, and eighth-grade social studies. No differences between those exposed to this communication technology and those not exposed to it emerged in the eighth-grade science experiment.

Dropping Out of High School: A Meta-Analysis Assessing the Effect of Messages in the Home and in School

The high school completion rate for the U.S. has increased only slightly over the last quarter of a century. A promising area of focus for dropout prevention efforts may be found in research that assesses how messages about educational attainment may affect school completion rates. The supportive communication framework is used to address how communication in the home and in school may affect student educational attainment. An extensive search of the student dropout literature was followed by standard meta-analytic procedures. The average weighted effect for communication in the home on high school completion was r=.21, and the effect for communication in school on high school completion was r=.14. The age of subjects and region of the country in which subjects lived were addressed as possible moderators of the relationship between communication in the home and school and educational attainment. No evidence that these variables moderated the relationship was found.

The Impact of Video Streaming on Mathematics Performance

Relying on a series of four experiments, F. J. Boster, G. S. Meyer, A. J. Roberto, C. Inge, and R. E. Strom (2006) demonstrated that students exposed to videostreaming exhibited more improvement in examination performance than control students. In extension, this study tests the effect of using videostreaming with a very different topic (mathematics), with a very different student population (large urban), and with different grades (sixth and eighth). The results replicated Boster et al. (2006) and indicate that the mean examination performance for those in the video-streaming condition exceeds the mean examination performance of the control group.

Heuristics and Modalities in Determining Truth Versus Deception

In potentially deceptive situations, people rely on heuristic cues to help process information. These heuristic cues can often lead to biases concerning how the receiver views the information provided by the sender. One such bias is a truth bias, which has been documented to occur in many potentially deceptive situations (Levine, Parks & McCornack, 1999). It was hypothesized in this study that receivers would make more truthful than deceptive judgments. This study also sought to explore the impact the modality might have on truth bias. It was hypothesized that the truth bias would be strongest in the visual condition, intermediate in the audio condition, and lowest in the text condition. Finally, whether using computer-mediated forms of communication could improve deception accuracy was addressed. It was hypothesized that deception detection would be most accurate in the audio condition. Results supported the first two hypotheses but not the third.

Assessing the Relationships Between Perceived Support From Close Others, Goal Commitment, and Persistence Decisions at the College Level

Research on supportive communication was examined in relation to students’ goals of earning a college degree and their intent to persist. Theories of student departure (Bean, 1985; Tinto, 1993) informed research questions assessing the impact of how social support from family members and friends affected commitment to the goal of graduation and how commitment to the goal of graduation influenced intent to persist. First-year college students completed a questionnaire at 2 time points during their first year of college. Results revealed that initial support from family and friends positively impacted initial commitment to the goal of graduation. Subsequent support from family impacted subsequent commitment to the goal of graduating, and subsequent commitment to graduating impacted intention to persist.

Dropping Out of High School: Assessing the Relationship between Supportive Messages from Family and Educational Attainment

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential impact of various aspects of supportive messages from parents/primary caregivers on the decision to stay in or drop out of high school. Specifically, the relationships between the number, valence, and helpfulness of the messages, as well as type of support and message framing with educational achievement were investigated. Eighty respondents completed in-depth interviews about their experiences in high school. Ordinal regression was used to assess the relationships posited in the three research questions. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Dump-and-Chase: The Effectiveness of Persistence as a Sequential Request Compliance-Gaining Strategy

Two field experiments were performed assessing the effectiveness of the dump-and-chase, a compliance-gaining technique employing strategic persistence. These two experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the dump-and-chase relative to other known compliance-gaining techniques. Experiment 1 found the dump-and-chase more effective than pooled data from the door-in-the-face and placebic information technique. Experiment 2 found the dump-and-chase more effective than the door-in-the-face, placebic information, and foot-in-the-door. The dump-and-chase produced consistently higher compliance-gaining proportions across experiments. Moreover, because the contextual features of two experiments differed substantially, the effect was robust to important contextual differences.

Commitment in College Student Persistence

This investigation theoretically extended Tinto’s model of student persistence by drawing on interpersonal communication research to elaborate on the role of commitment in student persistence. College student departure literature was reviewed and critiqued concerning the conceptualization and measurement of commitment within the interactionalist model of student persistence. Rusbult’s investment model was used as an exploratory theoretical frame for understanding commitment between students and institutions. Self-report measures of commitment and investment model predictors for students in higher education were included. Support was found for hypotheses using the investment model as a frame for understanding how both students’ commitment and perceptions of their institution’s commitment are relevant in understanding persistence in the higher education setting.