<p> This study examines how debate judges' perceptions of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness are influenced by sex in the "reason for decision" stage of parliamentary debate. Participants viewed one of four videos that manipulated the sex of the actor and the level of verbal aggressiveness used to express disagreement after a debate round. The results suggest that judges perceive female debaters as significantly more verbally aggressive than male debaters in their reasons for decisions. Other sex differences for perceived argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness were not significant. The results also indicate that perceived debater argumentativeness is positively related to perceived debater credibility; conversely, perceived debater verbal aggressiveness is negatively related to perceived debater credibility. Finally, the results suggest that female debaters are perceived as significantly lower in interpersonal justice than male debaters in reason for decisions.</p>

<p> This doctoral project seeks to discover whether a correlation exists between an enhanced understanding of genre-sensitive hermeneutics and homiletics and an increase in confidence in preaching Old Testament narrative literature. Many preachers exclude, ignore or abuse the Old Testament narratives in their preaching. It is vital for Romanian preachers to improve their skills in preaching the narrative portions of the Old Testament by learning an appropriate hermeneutical and homiletical paradigm for this genre of Scripture.</p><p> The strategy used to accomplish this was a one-week teaching seminar. The training program consisted of a one-week seminar for seminary students at Emanuel University in Oradea, Romania. The name of the one-week seminar was <i>Interpreting and Preaching Old Testament Narrative Literature </i>. Before participating in the training week, the students were required to complete a written pre-course questionnaire and submit a sermon sample from an Old Testament narrative passage. The same questionnaire was completed again after the training week. The results of the post-course questionnaire were then compared with the results of the pre-course questionnaire. At the conclusion of the course taught by the researcher, students were required to preach a fifteen-minute sermon from an Old Testament narrative passage. The post-course sermons were evaluated by the same criteria as the pre-course sermons. The results of the post-course sermon evaluations were then compared with the results of the pre-course sermon evaluations.</p><p> The results of the study indicate that a relationship exists between an enhanced understanding of genre-sensitive hermeneutics and homiletics and an increase in the selected preachers' confidence in preaching Old Testament narrative literature.</p>

<p> The current study examined how 179 romantic partners of U.S. service members perceived that they and their service members experienced the reintegration transition following a recent deployment. The relational turbulence model (Solomon &amp; Knobloch, 2004) and the theoretical model of communal coping (TMCC; Afifi, Hutchinson, &amp; Krouse, 2006) were used to frame this study. These frameworks had not been previously joined in this context. A revised communal coping measure was constructed to examine 17 hypotheses and 8 research questions because of challenges with the construct and external validity in prior measures. Participants completed an online questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of post-deployment stress, relational satisfaction, communal coping, uncertainty, and partner interference. Results indicated that communal coping completely mediated the association between partner interference and relational satisfaction. However, communal coping only partially mediated the association between uncertainty and relational satisfaction. The relational turbulence variables were also found to mediate the relationship between stress and relational satisfaction. Lastly, communal coping was found to moderate the relationship between stress and satisfaction. Practical contributions are noted in the form of a potential training program for military couples who are experiencing post deployment stress. Limitations and directions for future research are also noted.</p>

<p> The goal of this study was to determine the impact of culture on the practice of public relations in Dubai. Through the Social Judgment Theory, the researcher operationalized culture as a factor and came up with research questions and a hypothesis. The researcher used a purposive sample and qualitative long interviews to gather data from six public relations practitioners currently working in Dubai. Results proved the hypothesis and answered both research questions.</p>

<p> Researchers have identified effective coach-athlete communication as a factor in competitive success and participant satisfaction in intercollegiate athletics. Communication difficulties and communication breakdowns may interfere with the possibilities for both success and satisfaction. Another body of research posits that communication breakdowns between coach and student-athletes may result from failures in perception, including self-perception on both sides. Finally, more generally, gender differences have been identified by many researchers as accounting for some communication breakdowns. Using a sample population of male head coaches and female team members from five intercollegiate sports at an NCAA Division I university, this study compared the male coaches' self-perceptions of their communication styles with the perceptions of the women student athletes they coach. Three key findings are presented in this study: Media and the role of social media influence the behavior and communication styles of coaches, the experiences of the coaches and the personalities of the women on their teams affect their communication style, and the self-identification of athletes influence their perception of the head coach's communication style.</p>

<p> The purpose of this dissertation was twofold. The first purpose was to develop a valid and reliable measurement of health literacy appropriate for use in social science. The second purpose was to determine whether health literacy is a skill set that can be increased through the intervention efforts of communication studies scholars. These purposes were addressed across four studies. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis provided support for a 26-item revised Perceived Oral Health Literacy Scale (LaBelle &amp; Weber, 2013) which assesses individuals' <i>Motivation</i> and <i>Ability</i> to gain access to, understand, and use health information in order to promote and maintain good health. Conceptually, this measure is consistent with the definition of health literacy put forth by the World Health Organization (2014), thus offering evidence of its content validity. Empirically, the results across the four studies provide strong evidence for the validity of the revised POHLS. Evidence for construct validity was provided by the measures positive relationships to patient self-efficacy, response efficacy and perceived health competence, while also being negatively related to trait and dyadic communication anxiety. Further evidence of construct validity was suggested by known groups differences in the POHLS scores obtained between individuals who had completed a semester long course in Health Communication and those who had completed a course in an unrelated topic. Evidence for the criterion- related validity of the measure was not supported, as the revised POHLS was not related to individuals' physiological indicators of health or stage of readiness to change behaviors related to obesity and diabetes prevention. The results of a pretest-posttest nonequivalent groups design did not provide support for the effectiveness of a brief educational intervention to increase individuals' health literacy; however, the known-groups assessment offers support to conduct further research on this topic. Taken together, these results provide support for the revised POHLS as a reliable and valid measure of health literacy appropriate for use in social science research.</p>

<p>As service members return home from active duty, the number of veterans seeking attention for PTSD will likely increase. The manner in which society offers or denies support to veterans with PTSD is of utmost importance as they reintegrate into everyday civilian life. The collective support of family, friends, medical personnel, community members and organizations, broadly termed social support, is integral to the reintegration of veterans with PTSD. Among various aspects of social support, in this project, I examined the influence of Positive Social Support and Unsupportive Social Interactions and their relationship to PTSD and to seeking social support seeking behaviors in offline and online contexts. The findings from this study suggest that positive social support is associated with lower PTSD, whereas unsupportive negative interactions are associated with higher PTSD. Further, higher levels of seeking online and offline social support were associated with higher levels of PTSD. Moreover, those had online and offline behaviors were negatively correlated with social support, in essence suggesting the possibility that social support seeking behaviors are intended to make up for gaps in social support among veterans with elevated levels of PTSD. In summary, I argue that communication scholars and other social scientists should examine the role of social support on PTSD in veterans and with the increasing penetration of the Internet and new communication technologies, the comparative study of online social support compares to traditional face-to-face or peer-group support can be a rich area of study.

<p> There are so many different communication styles utilized by pharmaceutical sales representatives. This thesis handles the quandary of whether those communication styles are not only effective among the interactions with medical providers, but whether those effective means of communicating are embedded with ethical communication as well. The theory of <i>symbolic interactionism</i> and the philosophical basis of <i>persuasive speech</i> expound on the methodology pharmaceutical sales representatives implement with the people he or she encounters. Medical providers also need to perceive that their encounters with pharmaceutical sales representatives are congruently effective and ethical interactions, which is revealed by qualitative research methods in the thesis. Lastly, the pharmaceutical sales representative's effective and ethical communication provides recommendations in how to maintain the proper perspective of keeping these medical interactions with the greatest credibility and reputation. Keywords: Pharmaceutical sales representative (PSR), symbolic interactionism, persuasive speech, nonverbal communication, ethical communication, creating reality</p>

This thesis investigated the nature of gesture and its relation to speech in deaf and hearing French-speaking children between the ages of four and six. Although the spoken language of the two groups was not different, significant differences were found in the amount and kinds of gestures produced. The deaf children produced significantly more gestures, and a higher proportion of iconics, than the hearing controls. The deaf children were systematic in their use of speech in conjunction with gesture in that they combined iconic gestures with verb phrases and points with noun phrases. This systematicity was not displayed by the hearing children. The deaf children were also found to gesture more frequently during partially intelligible than during intelligible utterances. The implications of this data for the speech-gesture relation are discussed.

<p> In today's highly mediated society it is very likely that communication technologies will be utilized for group interactions. Questions regarding how groups interact and how modalities of interaction factor into effectiveness, affinity, productivity and satisfaction abound. Scholarship in this area is broadly approached from technologically deterministic perspectives and social constructionist perspectives. The reality is that neither perspective is completely accurate and any argument that relies solely on technology or group dynamic as the determining variable will have failings. This thesis explores the middle ground, acknowledging that both communication mode and group construction are factors when assessing communication quality. In order to understand the interplay between group dynamics and mediated interaction, study participants were selected from undergraduate communication courses where group assignments are a regular part of the curriculum. The study participants were allowed to work on the assigned tasks in an unstructured setting. After completion of the tasks the students were surveyed to discover how the groups organized and interacted, with a focus on determining types of interaction, satisfaction and perceived efficiency. Participant groups chose face-to-face as their preferred form of interaction (58.33%) with email the second most frequently used (34.95%). Part of the study addresses the question of conscious selection of interaction method and the correlation with outcome satisfaction, interaction satisfaction and perceived interaction effectiveness. Groups that made active decisions on how to interact showed a significant correlation with both outcome and interaction satisfaction, while groups that interacted based simply on the preferences of the group only reported having interactive satisfaction. The results of this study lend support to both the basic tenants of media richness theory and technology deterministic theories. The primary conclusion of this thesis is that interaction based on conscious decisions by the group result in a higher level of interaction and outcome satisfaction. </p>