According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2015, Texas special education programs were rated among the lowest in the nation. School districts in the state have a substantial need for effective and efficient staff training. In this study, researchers implemented TAPS: A Talk Aloud Problem Solving Approach Packet to teach active listener qualities to staff members in a life skills special education classroom. A multiple baseline across staff members was used to evaluate the effects of the TAPS training on the presence and absence of the staff members' active listener qualities during a pre-test, a post-test, and probes. The staff members that underwent TAPS training acquired all of the active listener qualities as a function of the TAPS training, and the effects of the training maintained during probe sessions. Additionally, TAPS training appeared to improve staff members' scores on the Whimbey Analytical Skills Inventory (WASI) Test and anecdotally improved the quality of staff and student tutoring interactions. Several areas of potential research and improvement are discussed.

Active listening is a communication technique where the listener listens to the speaker carefully and attentively by confirming or asking for more details about what they heard during a conversation. Active listening has proven to be a very useful technique in learning and extracting insightful information from the conversation and poses many challenges when emulating such behaviours in a virtual character. In this research, various active listening behaviours are explored according to context, so that these behaviours can be adopted by Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA’s) to be perceived as more believable humanistic characters. This publication describes those behaviours in-depth by gathering insights via expert Interviews. An experiment was carried out with 20 participants (12 men and 8 women) to identify the implemented behaviours and their overall effect during a generic conversation with the ECA. The results showed that the participants were able to identify most of the implemented active-listening behaviours like Interested/inquisitive, agreement/approval (head nod and corresponding sounds), and provided insights for further improvement of the interlocution. / Aktivt lyssnande är en kommunikationsteknik där lyssnaren lyssnar på talaren noggrant och uppmärksamt genom att bekräfta eller be om mer information om vad de hörde under ett samtal. Aktivt lyssnande har visat sig vara en mycket användbar teknik för att lära sig och extrahera insiktsfull information från konversationen och ställer till många utmaningar när man emulerar sådana beteenden i en virtuell karaktär. I denna forskning utforskas olika aktiva lyssnandebeteenden i enlighet med sammanhang, så att dessa beteenden kan antas av Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) för att uppfattas som mer trovärdiga humanistiska karaktärer. Den här publikationen beskriver dessa beteenden på djupet genom att samla in insikter via expertintervjuer. Ett experiment genomfördes med 20 deltagare (12 män och 8 kvinnor) för att identifiera de implementerade beteendena och deras totala effekt under ett allmänt samtal med ECA. Resultaten visade att deltagarna kunde identifiera de flesta av de implementerade aktivt lyssnande beteendena som Intresserad/nyfiken, överenskommelse/godkännande (huvudnicka och motsvarande ljud), och gav insikter för ytterligare förbättring av samtalet.

Farmaceuter är den yrkesgrupp med bäst insyn i alla läkemedel en patient tar i öppenvården. En bra kommunikation är oftast avgörande för en bra behandling och kan bidra till att förebygga biverkningar av medicinering och påverka individuella och samhällsenliga beslut som förbättrar hälsan. Specialister bör hjälpa patienter att komplettera sina kunskaper om sjukdomar och läkemedel. Detta förhindrar användning av förvirrande, otydlig och osannolik information som utgör ett hot mot patientens hälsa och till och med livet. I denna litteraturstudie granskades fyra artiklar från databasen OneSearch. Syftet var att undersöka vikten av aktivt lyssnande och dess betydelse vid kommunikation. Resultatet visar att aktivt lyssnande är en viktig komponent i initiala interaktioner och ökar mottagarens uppfattning om att känna sig förstådd, ge större konversationstillfredsställelse och gör samtalspartnern mer socialt attraktiv. Dessutom kan det påverka och vara en bidragande faktor till ökad kompetens inom andra områden inom kommunikation, såsom själveffektivitet och känsla av delaktighet. Det har också påvisats att parafrasering, en teknik inom aktivt lyssnande ger en ökning av den sociala attraktionen för intervjuaren, då en lyssnare som parafraserar erhållet budskap visar större intresse och skapar känsla av sammanhang med en samtalspartner. Aktivt lyssnande kan vara en bidragande faktor till att kunna kommunicera på ett effektivt sätt vilket är nödvändigt för att kunna erbjuda en högkvalitativ rådgivning och sjukvård på apoteket. Slutsatsen är att kommunikation har en meriterande och avgörande roll i farmaceutens arbete. En god kommunikationsförmåga samt lyssnarförmåga, vilka bygger på fullständig uppmärksamhet på vad en person säger. Att lyssna noga samtidigt som intresse visas och inte avbryta är avgörande för att förstå patienten, förmedla information kring läkemedel på ett tydligt och begripligt sätt. Dessutom förbättras patientens följsamhet till läkemedelsbehandling. Studier som använts i litteratursarbetet kan dock inte jämföras fullt ut med varandra, då samma mätmetoder inte har använts. / Pharmacists are the professionals, which have the best insight into all of the drugs a patient takes in outpatient care. They also see more patients in one day than other health care professions. Good communication is often crucial for good treatment and can help prevent the side effects of medication and have an influence on individual and societal decisions thus promoting health. Specialists should help patients supplement their knowledge of diseases and medicines, which prevents the use of confusing, unclear, and improbable information that poses a threat to the patient's health and even life. In this literature study, four articles from the OneSearch database were reviewed. The purpose was to investigate the importance of active listening and its influence on communication. The results showed that active listening is an important component in initial interactions and increases the recipient's perception of feeling understood. Furthermore, active listening leads to greater conversational satisfaction and makes the conversation partner more socially attractive. It can influence and be a contributing factor to increasing other areas of communication such as self-efficacy, and a sense of participation. It was also shown that paraphrasing, a technique in active listening, increases the social attraction for the interviewer, as a listener who paraphrases the received message shows greater interest and creates a sense of connection with the conversation partner. Active listening can be a contributing factor to being able to communicate effectively, which is necessary to be able to offer high-quality advice and medical care at the pharmacy. The conclusion is that communication has a meritorious role in the pharmacist's work. Good communication ability and listening skills that are based on full attention to what a person says and listening carefully while showing interest without interruption are crucial to understand the patient. It helps with conveying information about drugs in a clear and comprehensible way and improve the patient's adherence to drug treatment. Studies used in this literature work can, however, not be fully compared with each other, as different measurement methods have been used.

This is a case study on the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people using English as a lingua franca in their business communication. The aim of this paper is to establish if misunderstandings in communication occur between Chinese and Nordic language speakers (Finnish and Swedish) in a business environment and, if they do, what the nature of these misunderstandings is. In this paper, recorded conversations are analysed to establish if there are misunderstandings between the parties. The recordings were made at a global industrial company in Sweden and in China. Interviews with the participants were also carried out in order to establish their own ideas concerning the communication flow and to find out if the participants are themselves aware of using any particular communication strategies when interacting with one another. The results of the case study show that there were some misunderstandings in the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people; however, there were not any particularly serious misunderstandings with respect to the company’s business aims and objectives. The results indicate that the parties use communication strategies to enhance their messages and to determine if a message has been conveyed successfully. The strategies that were commonly used were confirmations in the form of follow-up questions and speaking slowly. Written or non-verbal communication were found to be used as a supplement to verbal communication. A strategy that the participants themselves noted as successful was keeping their messages short and simple. This is also known as the KISS-principle. The result of the study indicates potential misunderstandings caused by the Chinese using Yes as an act of active listening rather than agreement and it is suggested that an awareness of this cultural difference may help improve the intercultural communication between the parties.

Submitted by Luis Ricardo Andrade da Silva (lrasilva@uefs.br) on 2017-11-28T23:13:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o - Cacilda.pdf: 7425322 bytes, checksum: cbdb11713a263575d4d325f5cff062f0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-28T23:13:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o - Cacilda.pdf: 7425322 bytes, checksum: cbdb11713a263575d4d325f5cff062f0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-12 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / This educational intervention proposal is the product of Course Completion performed in the scope of the Professional Master of Arts (PROFLETRAS) of the State University of Feira de Santana (UEFS). It consists of applying listening activities of formal and informal testimonials in order to promote reflection on the language and contribute to the development of oral communication skills of the students, so necessary for the socio-affective practice of the individual. These reflections also undergo retextualization activities, they discuss themes such as linguistic diversity and the relations between speech and writing in an approach that represents an improvement when considering the guidelines introduced by the textbooks. The proposal in question is based on the design of interactive language - dialogue space that enables social practice of all kinds of acts - contrary to the approach of orality in the classroom as an excuse to practice reading and writing Marcuschi (1997, 2005a , 2005b); Marcuschi and Dion?sio (2007); Dolz; Schneuwly (2004); Bentes (2010); BRAZIL (1997, 1998); Oliveira (2012); Bortoni-Ricardo (2004), Bronckart (2003); Machado (2007). The didactic sequence (DS) - structured in modules - was applied to a group of 6th grade of elementary level from a public school of S?o Domingos in the state of Bahia, during the period of two months, totalizing 26h/classes. The material obtained in the DS and analyzed in this work - audio, video and written texts ? were obtained from the study subjects. The results of the intervention point that working with oral communication in the classroom, from the active listening texts, is productive and that the choice of testimony genre sparked interest and developed the creativity of students, becoming apparent in their productions, their progress regarding the oral competence. It is believed that if the DS were applied in greater time it would give more significant results. The research material is available in a repository for those who are interested in the discussions on the teaching of orality and concerned about the development of the oral competence of their students. The idea is that the proposal presented here add to other orality teaching proposals specifically, and mother tongue teaching, more broadly, in order to improve basic education and the life quality of students, expanding their communicative competence and making them, therefore, able to move around within the society without difficulty, mastering the resources and language mechanisms, understanding the meanings and senses that come to her. / Esta proposta de interven??o pedag?gica ? produto do Trabalho de Conclus?o de Curso realizado no ?mbito do Mestrado Profissional em Letras (PROFLETRAS) da Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana (UEFS). Consiste na aplica??o de atividades de escuta de depoimentos formais e informais, a fim de promover reflex?es sobre a l?ngua, colaborando para o desenvolvimento da compet?ncia comunicativa oral dos alunos, t?o necess?ria ? pr?tica social efetiva do indiv?duo. Essas reflex?es passam tamb?m por atividades de retextualiza??o, discutindo temas como diversidade lingu?stica e rela??es entre fala e escrita, numa abordagem que representa um avan?o, quando se consideram as orienta??es trazidas pelos livros did?ticos. A proposi??o em quest?o se fundamenta na concep??o de l?ngua interativa, contr?ria ? abordagem da oralidade em sala de aula como pretexto para a pr?tica de leitura e escrita. Nesse sentido, o aporte te?rico vem de estudos dos PCN (1997), (1998); Marcuschi (1997, 2005a, 2005b); Marcuschi e Dion?sio (2007); Dolz; Schneuwly (2004); Bentes (2010); BRASIL (1997, 1998); Oliveira (2012); Bortoni-Ricardo (2004), Bronckart, (2003); Machado (2007). A sequ?ncia did?tica (SD) foi aplicada em uma turma do 6? ano do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola municipal de S?o Domingos, Bahia, no per?odo de dois meses, totalizando 26h/aulas. O material obtido na SD e analisado nesta disserta??o trata-se de ?udios, v?deos e retextualiza??es, obtidos dos sujeitos da pesquisa. Os resultados da interven??o apontam que o trabalho com a oralidade em sala de aula, a partir da escuta ativa de textos ? produtivo e que a escolha do g?nero depoimento despertou o interesse e desenvolveu a criatividade dos alunos, ficando evidente, em suas produ??es, seu avan?o no que diz respeito ? compet?ncia oral. Acredita-se que, aplicada em maior espa?o de tempo, a SD daria resultados ainda mais significativos. O material da pesquisa fica dispon?vel em um reposit?rio para quem tenha interesse nas discuss?es sobre ensino de oralidade e se preocupe com o desenvolvimento da compet?ncia oral de seus alunos. A ideia ? que a proposta aqui apresentada some-se a outras propostas de ensino de oralidade, mais especificamente, e de ensino de l?ngua materna, de maneira mais ampla, tendo em vista a melhoria da Educa??o B?sica e da qualidade de vida dos alunos, ampliando-lhes a compet?ncia comunicativa e tornando-os, com isso, capazes de movimentar-se, sem maiores dificuldades, dentro da sociedade, dominando os recursos e mecanismos da l?ngua, compreendendo os significados e sentidos que chegam at? ela.

The Abstract The goal of this dissertation was to find out the quality of a communication training of the doctors in the undergraduate education. The sectional goals were focused on the analysis of a present state of communication training of the medical students, but also on determining the effect of communication training on development of communication skills of active listening and sharing the information. The last set goal was to create an ask-sheet of specific chosen skills as a beneficial element in a communication training of the doctors. For reaching the chosen goals, we have used several phases of a research. In the first phase, we gave to our respondents non-standardized ask-sheet, which was made to determine the level of their personal communication index. In the second phase of our research, we observed several chosen communication skills of the students. We took a video during every single simulated situations of the students' communication, which we used as a feed-back for the analysis of each performance. The first and second research phase took place between 2010 and 2015. The research team for the first phase was composed by the freshmen of Master study program of General Medicine in a present form at 2nd Medical Faculty of Charles University (2. LF UK) in years 2010 - 2015. I have...

The occupation of Western Sahara is a question of a forgotten colonization with a very limited framework of international recognition, media acknowledgment and talks. To break the remaining silence and invisibility, human rights activists have developed different initiatives, shedding light on the current situation of Western Sahara. This study investigates the Sahara Marathon campaign, an international sport event that has been developed in the Western Sahara refugee camps of Smara, El Aaiún and Auserd for twenty consecutive years.  Framing the Sahara Marathon as a case study, this degree project aims at inquiring into the potential impact and long-term implications of the international sport campaign, seeking “if” and “how” it contributes towards a social change and an end to the enforced invisibility of “Africa's last colony”, (Güell, 2015). In particular, this qualitative study examines the participatory approach and community engagement promoted through the campaign as well as the awareness-raising and dialogical processes triggered as a result of the Sahara Marathon sport event. The study is grounded on 23 in-depth interviews that have contributed to the external reliability of the research, underlining the reflections shared by organizers of the Sahara Marathon, drivers, freelancers, runners and most importantly human rights activists from Western Sahara. Findings reveal that the Sahara Marathon campaign raises awareness about the current situation in Western Sahara, contributing to a transnational acknowledgment of the conflict. The study also shows that active listening and convivial experiences are promoted throughout the campaign, dismantling stereotypes among communities coming from abroad and Saharawi people living in the refugee camps. In terms of participation, it has been concluded that the campaign uses a participation by consultation approach, needing a new model to showcase the utility and effectiveness of the event as well as to ensure its sustainability in the future.

Through discontinuous growth and its use in multiple sectors the podcasting established itself as a medium to be reckoned with in the future. Recently, the mainstream scene of French podcasting has seen, among its usual professionally produced shows, the presence of a few podcasts involving a clear and subjective message of activism. These manifestations, although a minority in the head of the charts, are only the visible part of a phenomenon made possible by the “long-tail” dimension of this medium. Indeed, although overwhelmed by the multitude of shows forming this tail, various activist circles have been able to take advantage of the myriad of useful qualities that this medium affords by creating their own programs. With the aim of grasping the interest shown by French activists in podcasting, this thesis was supported by the interviews of two French citizens working for progress through podcasting. The findings of these discussions were backed by active listening to the episodes produced and hosted by these participants and by three auto-ethnographic vignettes tracing the various stages of the creation of a podcasting show by the author of this work. The analysis of these results has been treated under the lenses of adequate theories to demonstrate that activists have a practical relationship with podcasting allowing them to reach their community active offline through participatory and independent episodes

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This research investigates the key characteristics of design leaders in the context of New Product Development (NPD) at the Fuzzy Front End (FFE) or early stage of this process. It particularly focuses on how design leaders communicate design to non-designers. It is often observed that designers struggle to communicate design to non-designers. Previous research has identified design leaders as competent design communicators. However, the definition and key characteristics of design leaders remain unclear. By reviewing the literature on leadership studies, design leadership and project leadership, it is evident that no single universal definition of leadership exists. The most common definition is that leaders apply their knowledge and skills to conduct activities and use their traits to influence other people’s actions. Leadership requires different characteristics for different tasks. To understand the characteristics of design leaders, triangulated research was employed at a real-life NPD project involving young designers and non-designers at early stages of NPD as part of the first study. All participants (N=32) were directly observed, interviewed in semi-structured interviews and administered with assistive questionnaires to compare design and non-design participants’ leadership and communication styles. The second study was in-depth, focusing on UK design leaders (N=11) through semi-structured interviews and based on deficiencies in leadership and communicating design, identified from the first study and the literature review. Comparative studies indicate that designers and design leaders vary their attitudes towards non-designers, motivation and communication style. This study highlights the key characteristics of design leaders: an epiphany by experiencing the entire NPD process, interest in the benefits of NPD stakeholders, a good understanding of design competency, reflectively flexible working attitude and strong, active listening. Thus, a conceptual model was formulated and evaluated, able to guide designers who wish to become design leaders and help to enhance design communication and relationships with non-designers.