Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2007. / Title from screen (viewed on June 11, 2007) Department of World Languages and Cultures, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84)

M.Ed. (Education) / The human body is, par excellence, a means of communication. Without communication man will not be able to express his emotions and needs. Much has been said and written about communication and everyone agrees that communication is important for man as a social being, as well as the part he plays in an organisation. Should problems arise within an organisation, the blame is put on poor communication. Too much time is spent, however, on training managers' communication skills in order to enable them to convey messages more effectively. On the other hand, no time is spent on improving the managers' listening skills, in order for them to understand others better. The educator is at the head of a school where people work with people. The staff, pupils and parents are all, at some time or another, in conversation with the educator. This gives them the opportunity to share their complaints, recommendations or feedback with him. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the educator has the necessary listening skills. He must be able to listen objectively and without prejudice. By listening the educator improves interpersonal relationships that produce a more effective school with satisfied staff and pupils. In order to improve his listening skills, the educator should be aware of the fact that he has a listening deficiency and should purposefully set about improving his listening skills - how difficult and time-consuming it might be.

The purpose of this study is to investigate certain types of verbal communications people use in small task-oriented groups. The verbal communications analyzed are certain phrases a speaker may use prior to the central idea of the statement uttered. These verbal communications are referred to as "language tactics". Language tactics are defined here as specific phrases a speaker may use to excuse, justify, rationalize, or interpret for the listener(s) what the speaker is about to say before saying it. The purpose of this study is to look at language tactics as they are used by members of small task-oriented groups to answer two basic research questions: Does the amount of previous interaction affect the use of language tactics by members of small task oriented groups? Does the type of task a small group is performing affect the use of language tactics by group members? Twenty groups of students with membership ranging from four to six members per group participated in this experiment. Ten groups consisted of Ss who had worked together as classroom project groups prior to participating in the study (Old Groups). The remaining half of the Ss consisted of new students in Speech Communication classes who had never worked together as groups prior to this study (New Groups). Two different tasks with differing levels of ambiguity were utilized. Ss were directed to achieve consensus on a particular task. One-half of the old groups and one-half of the new groups were assigned a relatively ambiguous task situation (TA). The remaining old and new groups were assigned a relatively unambiguous task situation (TU). Data was collected by audio-tape recordings of group discussions. Transcripts of the discussions were prepared and content-analyzed by three judges for incidence of the occurrence of language tactics. The unit of analysis used in the content-analysis of the data was the phrase. Criteria was established by the experimenter for the scoring of phrases. The proposal stated that there are two sets of conditions that influence the probable use of language tactics by members of small task-oriented groups. Two research hypotheses were generated and tested. Both null hypotheses failed to be disconfirmed; thereby the research hypotheses were not supported by the data. The study concludes with a review and critique of the study itself. Topics reviewed include the purpose of the study, the research questions the study proposed to answer, and the methods employed. Implications for future research are also discussed.

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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

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