Published article at Central University of Technology Free State, Bloemfontein / In South Africa the educational system has seen many changes over the past few years. Transformation in education has been introduced to correct imbalances of the previous South African educational system and to improve learner achievement in some of the previously disadvantaged schools. Despite changes that have been implemented, learners in many South African schools are still underperforming. The primary aim of this investigation reported in this article was to establish the extent to which selected micro communication factors, namely, immediacy, verbal aggression and compliance gaining influence learner achievement. The researcher argues that micro communication factors in the classroom could influence learner performance either positively or negatively. According to Robinson, learner achievement refers to the ability of a learner to succeed in an assessment and to display a satisfactory level of competence.

This is a two-part study that investigated university students’ comfort with instructors’ nonverbal immediacy behaviors in a college classroom. A sample of 289 participants was drawn from a regional university in the Midwest. The participants were asked to respond to an instrument designed to measure the students’ comfort with an instructors’ nonverbal immediacy behaviors. In the first study, the results do not support the hypothesis that males are significantly more comfortable with immediacy behaviors than female students. The results also do not support the hypotheses that students of both sexes will be more comfortable with immediacy behaviors from female instructors than male instructors,or that of the four possible combinations, female students with male instructors will be the least comfortable with immediacy behaviors. In the second study, the results suggest that student gender does not have a significant effect on students’ comfort with instructor immediacy behaviors.

Our nation’s first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, has said that “technology in education is less about hardware and software and more about what we teach, the method in which we teach it, and professional development and support for educators” (Fletcher, 2009). While technology reform continues to provide schools and colleges with hardware and software (Kern & Warschauer, 2000; Kessler, 2006), the amount of technology teachers use remains low (Barron et al., 2003; Cuban et al., 2001). If our efforts are to reform, as Chopra suggests, what we teach and how we teach it, our instructional technology research must incorporate the voices of teachers who determine what happens inside the classroom. One theory regarding limited technology use has been that teachers’ beliefs and their relationship to practice might provide us with insight that will allow us to aid teachers in their craft (Becker & Riel, 1999; Ertmer, 2005). This qualitative case study examines three Spanish teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and how those beliefs relate to their instructional technology use. Data include interviews, observations, field notes and documents analyzed using a constant comparative approach (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Findings show that beliefs about the classroom environment most influence their choices regarding instructional technology. / text

Robotic technologies possess great potential to enter our daily lives because they have the ability to interact with our world. But our world is inherently social. Whilst humans often have a natural understanding of this complex environment, it is much more challenging for robots. The field of social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) seeks to endow robots with the characteristics and behaviours that would allow for intuitive multimodal interaction. Education is a social process and previous research has found strong links between the social behaviour of teachers and student learning. This therefore presents a promising application opportunity for social human-robot interaction. The thesis presented here is that a robot with tailored social behaviour will positively influence the outcomes of tutoring interactions with children and consequently lead to an increase in child learning when compared to a robot without this social behaviour. It has long been established that one-to-one tutoring provides a more effective means of learning than the current typical school classroom model (one teacher to many students). Schools increasingly supplement their teaching with technology such as tablets and laptops to offer this personalised experience, but a growing body of evidence suggests that robots lead to greater learning than other media. It is posited that this is due to the increased social presence of a robot. This work adds to the evidence that robots hold a social advantage over other technological media, and that this indeed leads to increased learning. In addition, the work here contributes to existing knowledge by seeking to expand our understanding of how to manipulate robot social behaviour in educational interactions such that the behaviour is tailored for this purpose. To achieve this, a means of characterising social behaviour is required, as is a means of measuring the success of the behaviour for the interaction. To characterise the social behaviour of the robot, the concept of immediacy is taken from the human-human literature and validated for use in HRI. Greater use of immediacy behaviours is also tied to increased cognitive learning gains in humans. This can be used to predict the same effect for the use of social behaviour by a robot, with learning providing an objective measure of success for the robot behaviour given the education application. It is found here that when implemented on a robot in tutoring scenarios, greater use of immediacy behaviours generally does tend to lead to increased learning, but a complex picture emerges. Merely the addition of more social behaviour is insufficient to increase learning; it is found that a balance should be struck between the addition of social cues, and the congruency of these cues.

Submitted by Igor Lula Pinheiro Silva null (igorlulaps@gmail.com) on 2018-03-18T21:33:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Igor-Lula.pdf: 816978 bytes, checksum: 6f8c32dc6109f3c8b4b06e3750e7a6a5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Maria Rodrigues null (milena@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-03-19T13:41:35Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_ilp_me_arafcl.pdf: 816978 bytes, checksum: 6f8c32dc6109f3c8b4b06e3750e7a6a5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-19T13:41:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_ilp_me_arafcl.pdf: 816978 bytes, checksum: 6f8c32dc6109f3c8b4b06e3750e7a6a5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-05 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo compreender alguns fundamentos do debate teórico-metodológico estabelecido entre Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) e Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) sobre a dialética. Este debate foi documentado nas correspondências trocadas entre ambos durante a década de 1930 e repercute diretamente nos textos produzidos por cada um deles nesse mesmo período, revelando determinadas convergências e divergências que permeiam aspectos fundamentais da dialética. A seguir, o problema da pesquisa e os elementos teórico-metodológicos apresentados estão dispostos em uma constelação estratégica para se realizar um estudo a respeito de alguns desdobramentos da dialética no âmbito da teoria crítica. Partimos da observação de que os escritos da década de 1910 e início da década de 1920 do jovem Benjamin apresentam uma concepção de linguagem e crítica de arte que extrai sua vitalidade de uma determinada forma de imediatez em relação ao objeto. Entretanto, na década de 1930, ao considerar metodologicamente os ensaios mais recentes de teoria estética e crítica literária de Benjamin, Adorno observa que a relação de imediatez com o objeto é incompatível com a dialética materialista, sendo imprescindível realizar uma mediação do objeto com o processo social total. Após traçar esse panorama, o problema em questão é remetido aos textos programáticos em que ambos elaboram suas respectivas tarefas filosóficas, com o intuito de compreender o sentido da dialética no pensamento dos autores naquele contexto. / The present work aims to understand some foundations of the theoretical-methodological debate established between Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) on dialectics. This debate was documented in the correspondences exchanged between them during the 1930s and directly affects the texts produced by each of them during the same period, revealing certain convergences and divergences that permeate fundamental aspects of dialectics. In what follows, the research problem and the presented theoretical-methodological elements are arranged in a strategic constellation to carry out a study about some developments of dialectics in the scope of the critical theory. We begin with the observation that the writings of the young Benjamin in the 1910s and early 1920s present a conception of language and art criticism that extracts their vitality from a certain form of immediacy in relation to the object. However, in the 1930s, when considering methodologically Benjamin's most recent essays on aesthetics and literary criticism, Adorno notes that the relation of immediacy to the object is incompatible with materialist dialectics, and it is essential to mediate the object with the social process in its totality. After picturing this panorama, the problem in question is referred to the programmatic texts in which both elaborate their respective philosophical tasks, in order to understand the meaning of dialectics in the thought of the authors in that context.

This article analyses the Hegelian notion of death, presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In this work, Hegel names death the “absolute master” and this idea appears in two different sections of the text. The first mention of the absolute master is in the death struggle for recognition (self-consciousness), whereby the slave, who is aware of death and due to it experiments the anguish of its arrival, abandons the struggle to live at the service of his master. Thus, overcoming his own fear of death, the slave finds in its expression the transformation of the world. The second mention takes place in the analysis of the terror lived during the French Revolution. In this part, Hegel describes how the abstraction of absolute freedom is imposed upon all citizens, generating death and terror among individuals. In both experiences that the subjects (the slave and the citizens) respectively face, death appears as an experience that opens us to reflection and allows us to overcome immediacy. / El presente artículo analiza la noción hegeliana de “muerte”, que se presentaen la Fenomenología del espíritu. En esta obra, Hegel denomina a la muerte el “señor absoluto” y aparece en dos momentos distintos de la obra. El primer momento del “señor absoluto” se encuentra en la lucha por el reconocimiento (sección “Autoconciencia”), donde el siervo, que es consciente de la muerte y vive la angustia de su venida, renuncia a la lucha para vivir al servicio de su amo. Superando así su propio miedo a la muerte, el siervo encuentra en su expresión la transformación del mundo. El segundo momento es el del terror vivido en la Revolución Francesa. En esta parte, Hegel describe cómo la abstracción de la libertad absoluta se impone a todos, generando la muerte y el terror entre los individuos. En ambas experiencias a las que se enfrentan los sujetos (el siervo y los ciudadanos, respectivamente), la muerte aparece como una experiencia que nos abre a la reflexión y que nos permite superar la inmediatez.

Research shows that there is an increasing number of international students studying in universities and colleges in Canada, with China a top source country of international students. However, Chinese students’ experience studying in Canada has been rarely researched. Taking University of Ottawa as a case, this study explores the experience of Chinese students in terms of their relationships with instructors through a relational communication lens. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with Chinese first year students studying at the University of Ottawa to explore their experience of student-instructor relationships, to understand their overall experience of the student-instructor relationship, to identify the contributors and hindrances to the development of positive student-instructor relationships, and to explore the impact of such relationship on the students. Findings indicate that Chinese students experience different education and acculturation which influences their overall experience of student-instructor relationships. Teacher immediacy, rapport and classroom justice are factors that affect the development of such relationships, whose impact include both academic and social outcomes.

Extending scholarship on Baltimore’s media landscape, I observe how two moving-image texts, HBO’s The Wire (David Simon, 2002-2008) and 12 O’clock Boys (Lotfy Nathan, 2013), figure space and, by extension, mobility in the city. Specifically, I articulate how both figures of mobility relate with each other and to the mobility inequality that has historically and disproportionately plagued communities along the city’s east-west axis. Overall, in both texts, I read a shared anxiety toward sources of distant mediation. Through its sober audio-visual style and serial organization, I find The Wire fatalistically figures Baltimore mobility as conditioned by omnidirectional flows of power. These nefarious flows inevitably stymie any attempt at improving mobility inequality in the city, rendering distant sources of mediation as frustratingly inescapable. In contrast, I find 12 O’clock Boys implicitly critiques The Wire’s fatalistic figuration. Relying heavily on cinéma vérité aesthetics, such as handheld cinematography, this film figures mobility inequality as the product of corrupt institutional mediation. By coding institutional mediation as intrinsically alienating, this film implicitly advocates for exclusively immediate sources of mediation when representing east-west communities. Furthermore, the film suggests that escape from distant sources of mediation is both possible and desirable. Employing Iris Marion Young’s critique of the ideal of community and Scott Ferguson’s theory on care, I find The Wire and 12 O’clock Boys’ figures of mobility to be overly contractive and problematic, due to their mutual eschewal of vital sources of care that always already mediate from a distance.

This thesis explored the relationships among three communication variables in college-level instruction: students' expectancy about teachers' nonverbal immediacy, students' actual perceptions of teachers' nonverbal immediacy, and students' affective learning. Community college students enrolled in either distance learning or a traditional classroom course completed pre-course and mid-course questionnaires to indicate their expectations and observations of the nonverbal immediacy behaviors of their teachers. Analysis showed that students expected and perceived less nonverbal immediacy from tele-course teachers than from on-site teachers, but that perceptions significantly exceeded expectations. Research findings indicated that students' expectancies about teachers' nonverbal immediacy may influence the measurement of affective learning.

This thesis examined the relationships between instructors and students to determine the effects of prosocial instructor behavior on the college student experience for both in-person and online learning. Study One examined instructor rapport with students and verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors in face-to-face classes. Students reported on how their instructor constructed the classroom climate and perceptions of their instructor’s behavior. Results indicated that students’ perceptions of instructor verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors were related to lower student communication apprehension with instructors; whereas perceived classroom rapport was related with higher perceptions of their instructor’s credibility and was also related with a lower likelihood for students to engage in expressive and vengeful dissent about their instructor. Study Two used an experimental design to determine which instructor behaviors led to students’ perceptions of rapport, instructor credibility, and engagement in online learning. Results indicated that participants in the high professionalism and high clarity condition perceived more rapport, higher instructor credibility, and were more likely to be engaged in the class compared to participants in the low professionalism and low clarity condition. Perceptions of professionalism, clarity, and verbal immediacy all worked together as a significant model to predict rapport, instructor credibility, and engagement. In combination, this thesis revealed that positive student outcomes are a function of both instructor behavior and the environment they create.