Ronald E. Bassett

Assessing communication literacy

This article describes the work of the SCA Task Force on Minimal Speaking and Listening Competencies for High School Graduates. The importance of competence in speaking and listening is justified. Information on the procedures used by the Task Force to review research and select and apply criteria to make competency recommendations is provided. The report concludes with guidelines for minimal speaking and listening competencies for high school graduates and with implications of the basic skills recommended for curriculum development and research.

Teachers’ perceptions of competencies needed for effective speech communication and drama instruction

The purposes of this study were to (1) identify the competencies needed by effective speech communication/drama teachers, (2) compare and contrast these statements with the recommendations of the SCA/ATA Joint Task Force, and (3) explore the implications of these statements for competency‐based teacher education programs. Findings indicated that (1) teachers view effective educators as classroom teachers first and subject matter specialists second; (2) a profile of an effective teacher suggests a professionally trained person who enjoys teaching, is enthusiastic and positive in inspiring learning, and possesses personality traits which contribute to fair and consistent student management; (3) the SCA/ATA Joint Task Force recommendations and the teacher‐generated statements both emphasized the necessity of careful academic training yet differed on the importance of teacher personality; and (4) both sets of competencies reflect process‐product concerns which can be used in future speech communication/drama ...

The Effect of Organization on Learning From an Informative Message.

This study was an experimental investigation of the effects of informative message organization on listener learning. Two message versions were employed. The organized version consisted of a chronologically ordered description of the rules of the game Risk. The disorganized version consisted of the rules rearranged in non‐sequential fashion. Results indicated that Ss hearing the organized version achieved significantly higher scores on a subsequent learning measure than Ss hearing the disorganized version of the message. Implications for future research are offered and implications for message organization as a critical speech communication variable are discussed.

Effect of Training in the Use of Behavioral Objectives on Student Achievement.

This study was an experimental investigation of the effects on cognitive learning of training students to use behavioral objectives. One half of the Ss received training via programmed instruction in the use of objectives. They were also required to achieve a criterion score on a measure of ability to use objectives. The remaining Ss received a placebo treatment. Results indicated that Ss receiving training achieved statistically significant higher scores on an examination consisting of items matched to objectives than Ss not trained, although the absolute difference gave no support to useful practical application. SUPPLYING EXPLICIT STATEMENTS of instructional objectives to learners is an integral aspect of mastery learn ing models of instruction (1, 2, 5). This practice appears to be based on the assumption that objectives will reduce the students uncertainty about what is required of him, thus permitting the student to maximize learning by selectively attending to the most relevant stimuli in the instructional setting. If this assumption is valid, then it is reasonable to exp ct th t when performance is compared between Ss given behavioral objectives (BOs) and Ss not given objec tives, those possessing objectiv s should exhibit greater learning. As Duchastel and Merrill (6) demonstrated in their extensive review of obj ctives research, however, this relationship has not been co sistently observed. While This content downloaded from 157.55.39.235 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 04:39:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms BASSETT AND KIBLER 13 learner posession of objectives has been shown to facilitate learning in a number of studies, such a facilitating effect has not been observed across all studies. The generalizability of such an effect is therefore quite difficult to determine at this time. Furthermore, serious methodological problems appear in the literature with such frequency that it is pos sible to place reasonable confidence in few of the studies. Although there are many methodological inadequacies in the objectives literature, the ability of learners to use the objectives given to them emerges as an especially crit ical question for research. Several investigators have sug gested that students need to know how to use objectives before effects on learning will be present (3, 4, 9, 12, 13). Only three studies have been found, however, which re port procedures for training learners to use objectives. Boardman (3) and Brown (4) attempted to train Ss to use BOs, although neither assessed the effectiveness of the training. Furthermore, both concluded from anecdotal evidence that their limited training procedures were prob ably inadequate. In contrast, Morse and Tillman (12) em pirically tested the effects of their training efforts. Morse and Tillman s training consisted of having students read Mager s (11) Preparing Instructional Objectives with accompanying classroom instruction. Ss in a second train ing condition were directed to read Mager s book out of class, with no classroom instruction provided. A third group (control) was directed to perform an unrelated task. hi the second part of the study, one half of the Ss were given BOs for an assigned reading and the remaining half were not given objectives. Ss with objectives achieved higher scores on test items matched to those objectives than did Ss not posessing objectives. However, no signif icant main effect due to training and no significant inter action effect between training and possession of BOs were found. Consequently, Morse and Tillman concluded that training was not necessary for students to use objectives effectively in learning. The factor which most seriously limits the confidence which may be placed in this conclusion concerns the validity of the training procedures. Morse and Tillman acknowledge that Mager s book provides information about objectives, but does not contain instruction in how to use objectives in learning. Hence, the validity of the training is questionable. Conclusions about the effects of training cannot be drawn without establishing a strong correspondence between the training and the required terminal behavior. Since BOs are assumed to be a learning tool, it seems reasonable that students may require training before they are able to use objectives with maximum effectiveness. How ever, most investigators have ignored the question of stu dent ability to use objectives on the assumption that when learners are given BOs they will use them, and that they will use them as the investigator intended. Because little information on the need for training students to use ob jectives is presently available, the validity of the two as sumptions is not known. However, if training is necessary, and it is not provided, then positive effects of BOs may not emerge. Because it seems important to determine if training learners to use BOs is necessary, the relationship between training in the use of objectives and learner achievement was investigated in this study. Specifically, this hypothesis was tested: When objectives are provided for alunit of instruction, Ss trained to use objectives will achieve a significantly greater number of correct answers on an examination consisting of items matched to the objectives than Ss not so trained.