Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: John M. Keller, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 9, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

William Brigance in his Speech, Its Techniques and Disciplines in a Free Society reports the German psychologist Zillig’s experiment wherein ten pupils were apparently selected at random, placed in front of their classmates, and asked to follow simple instructions, i.e., “Raise your right hands.” The other members of the class were instructed to carefully judge each performing student on his ability to follow directions. In actuality, the selection of the ten students had been determined some weeks prior to the experiment when a secret vote had been conducted among members of the class to identify the “most liked” and “least liked” students. The ten pupils who were “selected at random” were in reality two groups, the five “most liked” and five “least liked” as identified by the votes of their classmates. Shortly before the experiment the five “most liked” students were instructed to behave exactly opposite to the instructions given. So when ordered to lift their right hands the five most popular students elevated their left hands while the “least liked'' group followed the order correctly. A number of similar procedures followed and then the observing students rated the performers of their direction following ability. Even though the five “most liked” students had been 100 percents wrong in their actual behavior, “When class scores were totaled, it was found that the best liked students had been graded higher than the least liked.” In summary, rhetoricians have recognized that the circumstances of the speech situation tend to highlight the speaker as a person and thus the personal impact (ethod) of the speaker can greatly influence the effect of his remarks upon the audience. Granting the importance of ethos, any study casting further light on this vital portion of rhetorical theory would be of value to the overall knowledge of public address. The general purpose of the study to follow is to conduct such an investigation. More particularly the following pages will present an attempt to use the theory and method of contemporary personality research in an effort to more fully explain the nature and functions of ethos in an actual speech situation, The remainder of this initial chapter will be given over to a review of rhetorical thought concerning ethos, and examination of five major contributions to the literature of personality theory (specifically that portion of personality theory dealing with the “authoritarian personality”), and a synthesis of these two fields of thought which will lead to the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the nature of ethos and its relation to personality.

Argumentativeness, or the predisposition “to advocate positions on controversial issues and to attack verbally the positions which other people take on these issues” (Infante & Rancer, 1982, p.72), has been associated with a number of positive outcomes. Research among student populations indicates that compared to people who are low in argumentativeness, people high in argumentativeness display higher ability to learn, higher self esteem, greater ability to creatively manage conflict, and higher ability to see both sides of a situation (Barden & Petty, 2008; McPherson Frantz & Seburn, 2003; Rancer, Whitecap, Kosberg, & Avtgis, 1997). Promoting argumentativeness among college students should prepare students to effectively handle conflict and enhance their overall communicative competence, thus setting students up for increased success in life (Rancer et al., 1997). Although much research exists on increasing argumentativeness, none could be found that specifically looked at content in the college level public speaking course in relation to increasing argumentativeness. Specifically, this researcher sought to determine whether instruction in Elaboration Likelihood Model as part of the persuasion unit in a college public speaking course increases student argumentativeness more than instruction in Toulmin’s model of reasoning/argument. Students in seven public speaking courses at a large Southeastern college were asked to complete the Argumentativeness Survey by Infante and Rancer (1982) after receiving instruction in either Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion or Toulmin’s model iii of reasoning/argument. Overall results did not indicate any difference between scores for students that received instruction in the two different content areas

Educational standards increasingly emphasize argumentation skills as goals fundamental to academic success, but schools largely fail to develop these skills in students, particularly among those in educationally disadvantaged populations. The present study examines development of argument skills among disadvantaged middle schoolers by engaging them in dialogs with a more capable adult over the course of a school year, in the context of a twice-weekly argumentation curriculum. Over four successive topics, participants in the curriculum engaged in six sessions of argumentive dialog per topic. Dialogs were conducted electronically between a pair of peers holding the same position on the topic and successive peer pairs holding the opposing position. Students were randomly assigned to treatment and comparison conditions. For students in the treatment condition, unknown to participants (due to the electronic medium), for half of the dialogs the opposing peer pair was replaced by an educated adult. These alternated with dialogs with peer pairs. Students in the comparison condition participated only in peer dialogs. The adult model arguers sought to concentrate their input on advanced argument strategies, identified as Counter-C (critique) and Counter-U (undermine), to the maximum extent possible. Effects on students were evaluated by their performance in their peer dialogs over the year and in a final dialogic assessment on a new topic in which students argued individually with an opponent (rather than in collaboration with a same-side peer). By the second of four topics, the more advanced argument strategies began to appear in a greater proportions of utterances in the dialogs of students in the treatment condition, compared to those in the comparison condition. The effect of condition increased over successive topics. It also persisted beyond the treatment context to the transfer task. These findings are suggestive of the power of engagement with a more competent other as a means of developing higher-order cognitive skills, as well as less complex social and cognitive competencies, where learning through apprenticeship has already been demonstrated to be a powerful learning mechanism. These findings are of particular significance for the educationally disadvantaged population studied here, who often are afforded inadequate opportunities to develop higher-order cognitive skills. Pedagogical and social implications are discussed.

Although converging evidence indicates that argumentive thinking and writing are best promoted by collaboration with others, it is still unclear which instructional approaches exert most benefits. The present study builds on the success of using a dialogic approach to develop argumentation skills in middle school students. The key component of the approach used here is the creation of an adversarial classroom setting in which students engage deeply in dialogic argumentation, which is viewed here as a process involving two or more individuals who hold opposing views. In dialogic argumentation, the focus of students’ attention will tend to center on the discursive goals of strengthening their own positions and weakening the position of the opponents. These goals of discourse ensure that students not only exercise supporting their claims with reasons and evidence but also practice making and responding to critiques, which is said to promote students’ mastery of the argument-counterargument-rebuttal structure. While the literature describes compelling advantages of dialogic approaches, it also reports valid concerns. A main concern is that during dialogic argumentation arguers have diverging goals of advancing their own positions, which may prevent the integration of opposing arguments. In an attempt to explore whether this disadvantage can be minimized, the present study examines whether the addition of a collaborative writing activity, as a form of peer argumentation that draws students’ attention towards a converging goal, to the dialogic curriculum provides students a further degree of support in developing their argumentive writing skills. It is hypothesized that collaborative writing would serve as a bridge between dialogic and individual argumentation by changing the focus of students’ attention from the adversarial to the collaborative dimensions of argumentation. To examine this hypothesis, two classes of sixth grade students participated in a month-long intervention that promoted deep engagement in dialogic argumentation on a series of challenging topics. Groups differed only with respect to participation in collaborative writing. Analysis of individual essays on the final intervention topic indicates that students who participated in collaborative writing showed gains relative to students who didn’t in coordinating evidence with claims, specifically in drawing on evidence to make claims that are inconsistent as well as consistent with their favored positions. On a transfer topic, students in the collaborative writing condition continued to surpass students in the individual writing condition; however, the gains were restricted to drawing on evidence to make claims that are consistent with the students’ favored positions. The results support the claim that the combination of adversarial and collaborative forms of peer argumentation in classroom instruction is a promising path for developing middle school students’ argumentive writing skills. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study seeks to explore the lived experience of competitors in high school level Oregon Style Cross-Examination Policy Debate in the state of Oregon. To elucidate this experience, between fifteen former competitors, graduating between 2003 and 2010, were interviewed in order to find common themes within the interviewees' experiences. The common themes that emerged from the interviews included establishing a knowledge base, the ability to research, effective use of communication skills, the development of confidence, and political awareness.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-350). Also available in print.

published_or_final_version / abstract / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Additional advisors: David Basilico, Eduardo Neiva, Cynthia Ryan. Description based on contents viewed June 3, 2008; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-116).