Engaging Persuasion: What Should Undergraduate Students Enrolled in a Persuasion Course Learn?

In our daily activities we are bombarded with persuasive messages. From advertising on mass and social media to interactions with friends, we are constantly exposed to attempts to change or reinforce our attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors. Conversely, we routinely attempt to influence others and gain their compliance through persuasive attempts of our own. Without question, persuasion is a central feature of virtually every aspect of human communication and is found wherever we find people communicating. Fortunately, scholars have developed a great number of empirically tested persuasive techniques, strategies, and theories that can help students become effective producers and consumers of persuasive messages. This article outlines the foundations, content areas, and applied assignments appropriate for an undergraduate persuasion course. In addition, we outline several pedagogical issues for instructors to consider

Rethinking Evaluation Strategies for Student Participation

Basic communication course instructors encourage student participation in the classroom by employing a variety of strategies, including graded participation. The present study examined the methods that basic course instructors use to facilitate and assess student participation in the classroom through focus groups interviews exploring how students perceive graded participation in the basic course. The findings suggest that while there are conditions in which the focus group students enjoy participation, there are also conditions in which they perceive such strategies as a power issue for instructors and reject the notion that participation accurately measures their level of involvement and learning in the classroom. Moreover, results indicate that students perceive instructor immediacy to be a significant factor in their willingness to participate. Finally, the focus group members offered several suggestions for instructors to better facilitate student participation in the classroom

Editor\u27s Page

Over the past 20 years, the basic communication course has become a staple of many of general education programs. The ability to communicate effectively is viewed as a prerequisite to interpersonal relationships, success in the workplace, and meaningful participation as a citizen in our democracy. The role of the basic communication course in general education affords the discipline with substantial political capital on many campuses—administrators often look to the basic course as an ideal location for launching new initiatives and capturing important data regarding student learning outcomes. To the extent that basic course directors are able to deliver those initiatives effectively, they may earn additional access to university resources. Without question, this is an important course. For more than 20 years the Basic Communication Course Annual has been the preeminent outlet for scholarship exploring and debating the best practices for the basic course in communication and this volume continues that tradition

Differentiation Versus Denial: Impact of Messaging About Player Transactions On Team Reputation, Ticket Sales, and Sports Channel Subscriptions

Part of a concerted effort to quantitatively test claims made throughout image repair research, this study provides a greater understanding of the effectiveness of the differentiation strategy over simple denial and provides further clarification for related claims made in image repair research. Sports teams who differentiate major roster changes from a team rebuild score higher on measures of reputation, intent to purchase tickets, and intent to subscribe to premium sports channels. On behalf of practitioners, scholars should consider the conditions under which the ability to claim differentiation is plausible with a loyal clientele or customer base

Editor\u27s Page

Without question, the popularity of the basic course in communication continues to grow, further entrenching it as a staple of the communication discipline. As several basic course scholars have persuasively noted, in the last 20 years, more and more colleges and universities in the United States have been charged with the daunting task of establishing an introductory course in communication as a central feature of general education curriculum. Given the popularity of the course and increasing pressures on basic course instructors/directors to document the effectiveness of the course, basic communication course scholarship is more important now than ever. For more than 20 years the Basic Communication Course Annual has been the preeminent outlet for such scholarship. The articles presented in this volume of the Annual cover a wide range of topics that advance our understanding of basic course practice and pedagogy

Extending Learning Opportunities in the Basic Communication Course: Exploring the Pedagogical Benefits of Speech Laboratories

This study asked 527 students enrolled in a basic communication course to evaluate the efficacy of a speech lab in relation to speech requirements stipulated by their instructors. In addition, the researchers examined the scores of 435 student speeches to determine if students who visited the lab earned higher grades compared to students that did not visit the lab. Results showed that (a) most instructors require their students to visit the lab before at least one speech, (b) the vast majority of students perceive the help they receive in the lab to be very useful, and (c) students who visit the lab prior to their speeches earn significantly higher grades on speeches than those who do not visit the lab

Uniquely Qualified, Distinctively Competent: Delivering 21st Century Skills in the Basic Course

In this manuscript we argue that the communication discipline’s pedagogical content knowledge should be expanded to include educational strategies for advancing students’ critical thinking, information literacy, and political engagement skills. Further, we argue that the discipline should explicitly position itself as uniquely qualified to address these skills. By doing so, those affiliated with the basic communication course can leverage a substantial amount of political capital on their home campuses and go a long way toward delivering the critical skills students need in order to be successful in the 21st century

Preparing to Participate: An Exploration of Student Engagement through Student Work and Instructors’ Observations

The present study investigates two instructional strategies that promote student preparation for and participation in class: reading objectives and participation sheets. In the first study, students were asked to complete the reading objectives (knowledge level questions about the assigned reading) and write the extended comments. Extended comments move beyond the knowledge level by demonstrating comprehension, application, or evaluation of the content. These include personal examples, insights, or questions about the course material. A content analysis of the students’ ex-tended comments found evidence of student engagement as 76.3% of the comments moved beyond the “knowledge” level. Study 2 examined instructors’ perceptions of student preparation for and participation in class. Instructors were asked to reflect on the differences between their classes that used and did not use the graded participation strategies. Instructors reported that the graded participation strategies resulted in more insightful discussions, a more positive class climate, and more knowledge of their students com-pared to their class sections that did not use these instructional tools

Learning Communities in the Basic Communication Course: Exploring Students’ Perception of Power and Use of Compliance-Gaining Strategies

This study compared students’ use of behavior alteration techniques (BATs) and power based upon whether they were enrolled in learning community or traditional sections of the basic communication course being taught by graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). The results of the present study reveal no differences between learning community and regularly enrolled students’ perceptions of power. However, learning community students reported using more prosocial, antisocial, and neutral compliance-gaining strategies compared to traditionally enrolled students. Overall, this study addresses the utility of incorporating learning communities into the pedagogy of the basic communication course and devotes special attention to the training needs of GTAs

Speech Evaluation Assessment: An Analysis of Written Speech Feedback on Instructor Evaluation Forms in the Basic Communication Course

As a critical component of many general education programs, the basic communication course is at the forefront of many assessment efforts. Five years after conducting extensive program assessment using student portfolios, and after implementing revisions to the instructor training program, course directors at Illinois State University conducted another round of portfolio assessment. The present study reveals progress in the specific areas originally targeted for improvement. Additional areas for future revisions to the instructor training program are suggested. Implications for assessment efforts at other institutions are discussed