ICR: Research News Spring 2014

ICR: Research News

In this issue…

p. 1: New ICR Grant; Upcoming events/deadlines; new easy webform for updates from you

p. 2: SONA for researchers; NEW faculty research circle; teaching tip; and new publications

p. 3: Research spotlights on a faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students; NEW research mentor

p. 4: NCA highlights; How do your students feel about doing their own research?

Upcoming Events and Deadlines

February 21: GSA Research Symposium

February 28: Faculty Research Circle

March 26: NCA Submission Deadline

March 7: Research Mentor Workshop

April 3-5: NCUR Conference

Would you like to be included in our new database of professional speakers and workshop facilitators? Do you have new publications or research programs to report? Please click here to update us regularly.

Instructional Research Team

Lands $200,000 Earthquake

Messaging Grant ~Deanna Sellnow

A research team lead by Dr. Deanna Sellnow has been awarded a grant by the United

States Geological Survey (USGS) to design and test early warning earthquake

messages. Sellnow and her colleagues--Dr. Tim Sellnow, Dr. Patric Spence, Dr.

Derek Lane, and doctoral student Nigel Haarstad--are collaborating with seismologists

at the USGS and Cal-Tech, emergency managers throughout the West Coast, and

graphic design specialists in Pasadena, California to gather information that to be

included in hazard warnings, develop messages using principles of effective

instructional risk communication, test the messages and assess the effects, and use the

data to design and refine them into an actual app.

In any natural disaster (e.g., flood, tornado, hurricane, earthquake), an effective

warning message is often the variable that saves lives. To be successful, however,

communicators must overcome several constraints related to, for example, how risk

level probabilities are interpreted, disparate levels of risk science literacy, and the

desires of a worried public for definite answers. Those charged with communicating

risk messages (both early warning and operational forecasting) are challenged by these

constraints. This project merges instructional risk and crisis communication literature

and visual design techniques with seismology science information to create, test, and

improve early warning and operational forecasting messages about earthquakes.

April 25: SONA Participation due

May 22-26 : ICA Conference

January 17: GSA Symposium Submission

Deadline

February 1: Pedigogicon Conference Deadline

May 16: Pedigogicon Conference

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ICR: Research News Spring 2014

Faculty Research Circle ~Deanna Sellnow

Mark your calendars from 12:00 – 1:00 pm on Friday, February 28th and

plan to attend the first Faculty Research Circle sponsored by the ICR

Research and External Funding Committee in LCLI 303. We all know that

really good work can be made even better when vetted with colleagues in

the form of a drafting-reviewing-revising process. At the Research Circle,

participants will share current research paper drafts and provide feedback to

one another for improvement before submitting them to a conference or

journal. We hope you come and join in the intellectual fun!

SONA for Researchers ~From Don Helme and Elisia Cohen

Researchers may post their studies between January 15 and March

14. SONA will open to students on Monday, January 27. Data may be

collected using SONA until April 25th

, and all participation must be posted

by April 27th

(or within 7 days of a student’s participation on a rolling

basis).

If you need to use SONA to recruit participants, requests including PI name,

study title, number of participants, whether it is grant or dissertation related,

whether it requires COM lab/resources, and the IRB approval number

should be emailed to Dr. Elisia Cohen.

Using Research to

Teach: A tip ~Brandi Frisby

Students texting during class getting you

down? According to a recent study, students

who are self-regulated learners are better at

task switching and blocking external stimuli

to be engaged in the course. However,

interruptions from text messaging did

decrease attention and cognitive learning.

What should you do about it? The researchers

suggest using instructional strategies to

maintain student attention. For example,

switching activities to avoid off task

behavior, incorporating phones and

computers into discussion, and giving time

limits to discussion can deter texting. While

many people may feel the desire to ban cell

phones in class, the authors believe that

instructional strategies should be the first line

of defense in the classroom.

Congratulations! New and forthcoming publications from ICR!!

Frisby, B. N., Berger, E. N., Burchett, M. R., Herovic, E. & Strawser, M., (2014). Participation apprehensive students: The influence of face

support and instructor-student rapport on classroom participation. Communication Education.

Frisby, B. N., Booth-Butterfield, M., & Eickholt, M. (2014). Divorce doesn’t mean it’s over: Face threats and face support in co-parenting and child-

free post-divorce turning points. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage.

Frisby, B., Limperos, A. M., Record, R.A., Downs, E., & Kercsmar, S. C. (2014). Students’ perceptions of social presence: Rhetorical and

relational goals across three mediated instructional designs. Journal of Online Teaching and Learning.

Frisby, B. N., Sellnow, D. D., Lane, D. R., Veil, S. R., & Sellnow, T. L. (2013) Instruction in crisis: Targeting learning preferences and efficacy.

Risk Management, 15, 250-271.

Hahn, E. J., Rayens, M. K., Kercsmar, S. E., et al. (2013). Dual home screening and tailored environmental feedback to reduce radon and secondhand

smoke: An exploratory study. Journal of Environmental Health.

Hickson, M., Jones, M., Morse, M. A., & Wilson, B. A. (2014). Foot in the door: A typology of salesmen. Qualitative Research Reports in

Communication.

Kaufmann, R. & Frisby, B. N. (2013). Let’s connect: Using Adobe Connect to foster group collaboration in the online classroom. Communication

Teacher.

Kaufmann, R. & Lane, D. R. (in press). Examining communication privacy management in the middle school classroom: Perceived gains and

consequences. Educational Research.

Lee, H., Wright, K. O’Connor, M, & Wombacher, K. (2013). Framing medical tourism: An analysis of persuasive appeals, risks and benefits, and

new media features of medical tourism broker websites. Health Communication.

Schmierbach, M. G., & Limperos, A. M. (2014). Virtual justice: Testing disposition theory in the context of a story-driven video game. Manuscript

forthcoming in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Sellnow, D. D. (2014). The rhetorical power of popular culture: Considering mediated texts. (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Shaunfield, S., Wittenberg-Lyles, E., Parker Oliver, D., & Demiris, G. (2014-in press). Virtual fieldtrips for long-term care residents: A feasibility

study. Activities, Adaptation & Aging.

Tilton, S. M. (March 2014). The portable academic: Tablet as researcher’s kit. REFRAME.

Tilton, S. M. (2014). Facebook as a student development tool. In M. Kent & T. Leaver (Eds.), An Education in Facebook?: Higher Education and

the World's Largest Social Network. London UK: Routledge.

Verderber, R. F., Sellnow, D. D., & Verderber, K. S. (2014). The challenge of effective speaking in a digital age. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage.

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ICR: Research News Spring 2014

Research Spotlights and Research Mentor ICR Faculty Research Spotlight

Dr. Molly Reynolds is a faculty lecturer in ICR. Recently, Molly taught CIS 391 Undergraduate Research in Qualitative Methods. This course affords

exceptional students with opportunities to become primary researchers. In this course, she trained

students in interviewing, transcription, data collection, and research writing. The project this semester

explored what it means to be a university scholar

student at UK and other universities. Molly and her students are currently writing two research papers for

conference and journal submission. Next semester, Dr. Jami Warren will join Molly in teaching another

research course that will introduce students to both quantitative and qualitative methods. Students will

become familiar with values coding, a qualitative method that Drs. Molly, Reynolds, Laura Stafford, and Rachel Price conducted research on and published in

Qualitative Studies in Interpersonal Communication where

they studied friends with benefits relationships. Finally,

Molly is working with Dr. Deanna Sellnow on research exploring retention issues during the first

semester of college. They are working on publications resulting from Molly’s dissertation work, Trapped in transition: Examining first semester college students’

discursive struggles about home and school.

Graduate Student Research Spotlight

Renee Kaufmann is a Doctoral Candidate who recently co-authored two published articles. The first piece explored how middle school teachers decide

what to reveal or conceal with their young students and will be published in Educational Research. The study

found that middle school teachers use the criterion identification rapport to disclose taboo topics like death

or divorce with students in order to have students identify with the teacher and build a relationship. The second piece explained how to foster group

collaboration within an online course and includes a step-by-step activity using Tuckman’s model as the

guide to using web-conferencing software like Adobe Connect to help students engage and connect in real-

time. Currently, Renee is writing her dissertation.

Undergraduate Student Research Spotlight

University scholar, Chanson Davenport, is only in his first year of the university scholar program but is

already a productive member of the division. In addition to serving as a teaching assistant in several

courses, he is also a tutor for the MC3 lab where he has been instrumental in delivering communication

workshops to CIS 110 and 111 students. He recently presented research on undergraduate mentoring experiences at the National Communication

Association convention in Washington, D.C. Additionally, Chanson is working on two new

projects: 1) collecting data exploring CMC use in the college classroom with Drs. Molly Reynolds and

Jami Warren and 2) collecting biophysical data during marital couples end-of-life decision making processes with Drs. Brandi Frisby and Allison Scott.

Research Mentor

Amy Gaffney's research is focused on the role of

communication in teaching and learning as well as the teaching and learning of communication. Recent

projects include the impact of communication instruction on students' self-efficacy to communicate and the influence of pedagogical expectancy

violations on students' course satisfaction and learning. As the point person for the division

assessment, she recently published a manuscript with Brandi Frisby in the Basic Communication Course

Annual on how the CIS two-course sequence is

impacting students communication and efficacy.

Her current work is continuing in this area focused

on assessing student affective, cognitive, and skills learning in composition and communication

courses. You can seek Amy for mentoring on Tuesdays from 9:30-11:30 am in 310E or virtually.

She will be offering a research workshop on March 7th in LCLI 303 on using multiple methods to

explore and untangle the complexities of student learning.

To nominate someone for a research spotlight or as

research mentor, email a member of the research

committee!

ICR at NCA ~Brandi Frisby

During four days at NCA in Washington, D. C., over 30 papers and panels representing 26 different members of ICR

were presented. When asked about the NCA experience Laura Brown said, “I went to NCA this year thinking that I

would spend time with my friends from Texas State. Instead, I spent almost the entire weekend with my new friends

from the University of Kentucky. I was rejuvenated by hearing Tim Mottet, Deanna Sellnow, Derek Lane and friends

talk about the future of the division and their project ideas. There are so many exciting things happening in our division

right now and I look forward to being a part of it. Renee Kaufmann added, “I will always go to NCA. There is

something about a bunch of people coming together to talk about the same topics of interest to you that is so

rejuvenating. I love the fact that when I am talking to someone in my sub-field it is like we are speaking code and we

get excited about the potential research that we want to conduct together." Renee was also elected to a leadership

position for the Basic Course Division. The next NCA submission deadline is March 26, 2014. Let’s keep up this type

of representation of our division next year in Chicago for the 100th

anniversary of NCA!

External Resources and Research Committee

Brandi Frisby – co-chair

Deanna Sellnow – co-chair Joanne Cattafesta

Anthony Limperos

Mary Ann Nestmann Mike Pennell

Molly Reynolds

Patric Spence

Research and Information Literacy with

Undergraduate Students: Beyond Google ~ Michael Pennell

In a recent report from Project Information Literacy (PIL), researchers focused on how first-year college students conduct and understand research. The report shares findings from interview and survey data,

pointing to the importance of the first-year in introducing and establishing college-level research strategies. CIS 110, 111, and 112 instructors factor prominently in first-year students’ research experience, as first-year composition and communication instructors and librarians prove the most helpful in students’

introduction to college-level research. Some other findings relevant to ICR:

First-year students are both “overwhelmed” and “excited” by the increased number of resources

found on college campuses. For example, the average college library has 9 times as many books and journals as the average high school library, as well as 19 times as many library databases.

Students find online searching a daunting and complex process, leading to frustration at locating

relevant sources and, in turn, understanding and tying together sources. Many find their high

school experience does not translate to college-level research.

Most first-year students rely on “Five Go-to Research Sources”: Google search, library databases, course readings, government sites, and instructors. The study notes an increase in Google Scholar

use amongst first-year students. Ultimately, the report highlights the importance of the first-year of college in shaping and evolving

students’ information-seeking behavior. In addition, the five myths of college research may resonate with many of us involved in teaching first-year students.

Link to report: http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_2013_FreshmenStudy_FullReport.pdf