Measurement in Instructional Communication *

Abstract

This chapter offers several recommendations for the future of measurement in instructional communication research. Emotion and communication are inherently intertwined as communicators symbolically experience, construct, and express feelings toward others and their environment. B. Thompson and J. P. Mazer found that student academic support plays a vital role at the college level, where students often view communication with fellow students as their primary source of academic support. Equally important and reflective of the evolution of instructional communication, the measurement of teacher communication behaviors has continued to advance our understanding of the relationship among communication, teaching, and learning. Research indicates that communication between parents and teachers at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels has shifted dramatically in recent years. Emblematic of emerging disciplines, instructional communication research, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, was characterized as atheoretical variable analytic exercises that examined teacher characteristics and the resulting impact on student success.