Instructional communication literature suggests that, to achieve optimal student learning outcomes, an instructor must completely engage in all aspects of experiential learning. It follows, then, that youth ministers should also employ experiential learning in their youth ministries to achieve their learning outcome goals among the youth they teach. This research project examined three research questions: 1.) What pedagogical strategies do youth ministers use during large group class sessions? 2.) In what ways do youth ministers employ instructional communication best practices within their pedagogical strategies? 3.) What strategies do former students remember their youth minister using the most? The analysis revealed four key conclusions. First, youth ministers privilege lecture-style delivery formats over other formats suggested as key in the instructional communication literature. Second, youth ministers who do implement discussion-based delivery formats predominately use teacher-student rather than student-student discussion, which is also an instructional communication best practice. Third, although youth ministers talk about instructional communication best practices regarding engagement and action, they rarely provide opportunities for students to do so during large group class session. Finally, former students report recalling that youth ministers privilege lecture delivery over student-to-student discussions or active application activities related to their daily lives. Based on these conclusions, several implications and suggestions for future research are proposed.

As technology changes, so do the ways in which we receive information, provide information and interact with one another. The exchange of social support is increasingly mediated by technology in the realm of health, nutrition, and fitness (Dahl, et al 2015; Wright et al 2011). Commercial weight loss and healthy lifestyle initiatives such as the Beachbody programs incorporate social media and web applications to reach a broader consumer base with individualized programming options. The present study, guided by optimal matching theory and the helper theory principle, employed online participant-observation and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Beachbody coaches and participants to investigate how these individuals perceived social support to be enacted in these programs as well as the perceived benefits and challenges of participating in these online groups. The interview transcripts were coded using thematic analysis to identify significant topics based on Owen's (1984) process of identifying recurrence, repetition, and forcefulness. Major benefits for participants included accountability, around the clock access to feedback, and access to a wide range of information. Noted challenges included the lack of personal connection and a need to maintain face-to-face relationships, difficulty sustaining motivation, and financial concerns. Cultivating a genuine feeling of community to facilitate open discussion and sharing was often inconsistent and a challenge to maintain throughout the duration of the program. This study aims to expand our understanding of social support in the context of online fitness and nutrition programs with potential to guide further research in technology-mediated support and how it may affect health. By broadening our understanding of the benefits of online support and how individuals have overcome its challenges in this context, it may help provide direction for the development of future research and similar online health initiatives.

This research examined how corporate social advocacy (CSA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts impacted perceptions of authenticity. Using an experimental survey, participants were randomly exposed to Nike's actions related to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement via mock-online news articles. Participants completed a survey that contained Likert-type scale items regarding attitudes (perceived corporate intent, perceived authenticity, brand trust, and brand credibility) and behavioral intentions (word of mouth intentions (WOM), and purchase intention (PI)). Results indicated that positive attitudes significantly increased when Nike implemented an action step after taking a public stance on a controversial social-political issue. Further, results revealed significant differences for positive WOM intentions and PI, given the experimental prompt. This study extends public relations scholarship through expanding our understanding of stakeholder perceptions of authenticity when companies engage in CSA and CSR practices. To earn legitimacy, companies must meet stakeholder expectations through successfully executing socially responsible actions. This study illustrates a need for future research on stakeholder perceptions of authenticity when various action steps are added to a company stance on divisive social-political issues.

Before any words are spoken, an individual's appearance is his or her first line of nonverbal communication with the rest of the world. Prior research conducted on physical attractiveness has been vague and contradictory and has not assessed its many components. Rather, past investigators have perceived physical attractiveness as a "unidimensional" concept. Several phases were involved in the task of proving or disproving the hypotheses of the study. The first general phase began with the selection of photographic subjects, progressed into the creation of a set of photographs which were to become the stimuli, and proceeded to the selection of the photo judges, whose evaluations would determine the final select group of 18 photographs and their physical attractiveness intensity levels.

Research has shown that prior expectations of on individual's performance can have a significant effect on others behavior and attitudes toward that individual. This phenomenon was tested on the emergent leadership process with zero history groups. Male students in various social fraternities at a regional university were given a leadership test designed to measure their leadership abilities. The leadership tests were never scored, but the subjects were told that they were, and, one of the group members was reported as scoring exceptionally nigh. The group was then given one of two tasks to perform, and the emergent leadership process was observed. Both perceived leadership and the rate of interaction during the group task were ranked by four observers. At the end of the group exercise, the group members ranked themselves on their leadership behavior during the exercise. The predicted leader was given significantly higher leadership rankings in all three data categories than any other group member. In a comparison of intragroup data, for each of the ten groups, it was shown that the leadership emergence was not thrown to the predicted leader; instead, he behaved in a manner that was perceived as leader-like. Although there was a difference in the predicted leaders' rankings between the two different task groups, both tasks showed significance. The predicted individuals were observed as being one or the top interacters of their group, however, there was not a significant difference. While the results did not indicate whether the significance in the predicted leader's rankings was due to a true Pygmalion effect, or an implied appointed leader, they do show that the effect of a leadership prediction on the group process is significant.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of communication apprehension and sex on task efficiency, satisfaction, liking, and trust following a dyadic problem-solving situation. The experimental design was a h x 3 analysis of variance determined by the level of communication apprehension (high-low) and by the sex of the dyads (male-male, male-female, female-female). The results indicated that the high communication apprehensive dyads had significantly less task efficiency, less satisfaction, less liking, and less trust than the low apprehensive dyads. Further, male-male dyads had significantly more satisfaction and significantly less trust than the female-female dyads.

The purpose of this paper is to describe both the conceptual and methodological changes in the basic course and to test a unique communication training program which is congruent with the rhetoric of schooling and relevant to the needs of students. Consistent with this purpose, chapter one involves a discussion of the purpose of education and a suggestion that, in light of recent findings in educational psychology, higher education may be moving away from traditional practices. Chapter two affirms the importance of communication studies to human affairs; the transition in the basic speech course is documented and paralleled to the current movement in higher education; and finally, evidence is submitted to support the proposition that empathy is appropriate subject matter of education for self-actualization. In chapter three, hypotheses regarding student-centered, Interpersonal communication training are advanced, and the procedures used to test these hypotheses in an experimental basic speech course are outlined. Chapter four reports the results of the present research and provides a discussion and conclusions based upon those results.

A contextual analysis investigation of related communication acts is concerned with the multidimensional nature of human interdependence. The communication strategy is a category of relational communication acts that can be viewed as one of the ways in which interactants promote or maintain a working consensus and enhance interpersonal discovery. Strategy use is motivated by the nature of the relationship rather than by the speaker's conscious attempts to direct outcomes.

This investigation explored the dialectic of communication competence from an historical prospective and successfully identified seven common threads in competence theory. Communication skills and skills classifications were linked to competency issues. A content analysis of the 452 page leading national skills level communication text identified 185 skills behaviors along with their associated communication competencies. Skills were described in twelve categories; however, no consistent definition or treatment of communication skills was in evidence. Implications of the findings were discussed.

The transformation of the United States Army to a combat force capable of operating successfully on future battlefields requires the leveraging of digital communication capabilities to support distributed battle command. The purpose of this study is to investigate collaborative command group planning performance in traditional face-to-face (collocated) and geographically dispersed group (distributed) conditions. The Reactive Planning Strategies Simulation (REPSS) system was developed to provide a realistic group planning task supporting empirical estimates of planning process and performance outcome success, measured in this context as delivery rate of humanitarian supplies. Results indicate that synchronization scores were not significantly different between conditions; however, they were highly correlated with command group humanitarian supply delivery rates when collapsed across both collocated and distributed' conditions. Furthermore, collocated command groups delivered humanitarian supplies at a higher rate than did distributed command groups. This difference was primarily due to the cumulative effect of poor decision making across the multiple decision points required of the command groups during the exercise.