Communication Lessons Research Articles

A Lesson in Effective Communication: An Interview With Dr. Gary Latham

This interview-based article addresses the question of how management educators can increase their effectiveness in communicating with their students. A challenge for management educators who are looking to bring their teaching and impact to the next level is that there is a voluminous literature regarding effective communication best practices. The current article focuses on what management educators should prioritize to better engage their students, communicate with their students, and disseminate their work beyond academia. To help management educators determine which of the many effective communication practices should be focused on, the current article presents an interview with someone who is among the most influential scientist–practitioners in the field of management, Gary Latham. We advocate for management educators to set a specific, challenging goal for improving their teaching performance, and to also implement one or more of the following recommendations to communicate memorably when teaching management education students: (1) using everyday, layperson rather than scientific language; (2) emphasizing the value of behavioral science theory for practice; (3) explaining the danger of ignoring conditional variables; and (4) capturing and keeping students’ attention by presenting surprising findings.

Understanding the dynamics of English-speaking challenges for students in Kazakhstan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the English-speaking challenges confronted by English as Foreign Language (EFL) students in the context of Kazakhstan, a Central Asian, post-Soviet nation, particularly focusing on the interrelation of English language fluency issues, psychological conditions and the influence of environmental factors.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative inquiry is firmly situated in Krashen’s second language acquisition theory. The research cohort comprises ten undergraduates from the esteemed Foreign Languages and Translation Studies Department, their narratives forming the basis for data analysis. The author conducted structured interviews with the participants.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that limited language proficiency not only hinders fluency but also initiates psychological challenges, forming a difficult cycle. Additionally, environmental elements, such as interactions with teachers and peers, have both beneficial and adverse impacts on speaking improvement. Acknowledging and tackling these complex dynamics is crucial for developing focused interventions that foster a supportive learning environment conducive to enhancing language acquisition and fluency.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this research is that the triangulation method in the form of additional semi-structured interviews and/or observation was not used to get more in-depth data.Practical implicationsThe study might be helpful for stakeholders to reflect on the English difficulties they experience and to prepare effective teaching and learning strategies. In particular, EFL teachers may need to use more speaking activities in lessons to help students overcome language barriers in speaking. EFL teachers might also adopt strategies such as not judging learners’ mistakes in the first phase of their language practices until they get used to speaking without any psychological blocks and paying additional attention to vocabulary and grammar knowledge in communicative lessons. EFL students may use the strategies to consciously evaluate their skills and not learn the speaking material by heart beforehand. In addition, university administration may organize regular speaking clubs for students in order to create an immersive environment. Moreover, they might require teachers to show up with their speaking capabilities before hiring English teachers, especially in English-related specialization departments.Originality/valueThe research indicates a lack of support and a judgmental environment, passive involvement in communicative pursuits and memorization as instrumental strategies for augmenting oral proficiency. These reasons have created difficulties in speaking English for students studying in English-specialized departments in Kazakhstan.

Differences in perceived sources of uncertainty in natural hazards science advice: lessons for cross-disciplinary communication

IntroductionWe conducted mental model interviews in Aotearoa NZ to understand perspectives of uncertainty associated with natural hazards science. Such science contains many layers of interacting uncertainties, and varied understandings about what these are and where they come from creates communication challenges, impacting the trust in, and use of, science. To improve effective communication, it is thus crucial to understand the many diverse perspectives of scientific uncertainty.MethodsParticipants included hazard scientists (n = 11, e.g., geophysical, social, and other sciences), professionals with some scientific training (n = 10, e.g., planners, policy analysts, emergency managers), and lay public participants with no advanced training in science (n = 10, e.g., journalism, history, administration, art, or other domains). We present a comparative analysis of the mental model maps produced by participants, considering individuals’ levels of training and expertise in, and experience of, science.ResultsA qualitative comparison identified increasing map organization with science literacy, suggesting greater science training in, experience with, or expertise in, science results in a more organized and structured mental model of uncertainty. There were also language differences, with lay public participants focused more on perceptions of control and safety, while scientists focused on formal models of risk and likelihood.DiscussionThese findings are presented to enhance hazard, risk, and science communication. It is important to also identify ways to understand the tacit knowledge individuals already hold which may influence their interpretation of a message. The interview methodology we present here could also be adapted to understand different perspectives in participatory and co-development research.

Rationalization, enchantment, and subjectivation – lessons for risk communication from a New Phenomenology of everyday reasoning

The success of risk communication in democratic societies depends on a good understanding of people’s knowledge and ways of reasoning, which requires a broader perspective of ‘societal risk communication’. This includes all kinds of rationales how people and social institutions communicate, make sense of, and engage with risk and uncertainty to better understand the epistemological challenges for risk communication by experts and social decision-makers. For this purpose, we utilize insights from New Phenomenology and specify three rationales how people and social institutions engage with risk and uncertainty, following earlier work: ‘rational’ evidence-based modes of engaging with risk are accompanied by ‘non-rational’ (e.g. faith, hope) and ‘in-between’ modes (e.g. intuition, trust). In everyday life these idealtype modes rarely occur in pure but modified form. Therefore, we advance Zinn’s original work by introducing a dynamic model of decision-making under risk and uncertainty along the three types drawing on New Phenomenology. There are systematic differences in the embodied and the abstract forms of knowledge people refer to when making sense of risk and uncertainty while the abstract forms differ in their empirical saturation. The dynamized framework helps to understand institutional challenges as well as people’s sense-making, which show tendencies of ‘rationalization’, ‘enchantment’ and ‘subjectivation’.

The educational text in integrative teaching of Russian as a native language in schools of Kazakhstan

Relevance. Language teaching in schools of the Republic of Kazakhstan (RK) is implemented considering all current trends and includes the use of innovative methods. Special attention in the process of language education in schools of the Republic of Kazakhstan is paid to the study of Kazakh, English, and Russian languages.Purpose. The purpose is to conduct an investigation on the linguodidactic possibilities of integrated learning among students in educational institutions with Russian as the language of instruction and to assess the effectiveness of the author�s integrated course in teaching the Russian language as a native language.Methodology. To achieve this goal, methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison, observing the educational process, and a specially developed author�s experimental programme of integrative teaching of the Russian language in communication lessons were used.Results. The study describes the linguodidactic possibilities of integrative teaching of the Russian language in the conditions of updating the content of school education in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The possibilities of the educational text in teaching Russian as a native language are described. An attempt is made to identify the educational potential of the educational text as an integrative category. A study was conducted among tenth-grade students of the Municipal State Institution �Secondary School No. 125� of Almaty, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the developed experimental programme of integrative learning. Examples of specific tasks from the tested experimental programme are given and their effectiveness is determined. The views of teachers and schoolchildren on the approved programme and its effectiveness are identified.Conclusions. The results can be used by teachers of the Russian language in schools of the Republic of Kazakhstan to improve the quality of the educational process, by the management of educational institutions when compiling a school educational programme and introducing integrative courses into it.

Trusted sources for COVID-19 testing and vaccination: lessons for future health communication

ABSTRACT Background Promoting COVID-19 vaccination (both the primary series and boosters) remains a priority among healthcare professionals and requires understanding the various sources people trust for acquiring COVID-19 information. Method From October 2021 to May 2022, we interviewed 150 people who called 2–1–1 helplines in Connecticut and North Carolina about their COVID-19 testing and vaccination experiences in order to (1) better understand where people obtain trusted COVID-19 health information and (2) identify how public health professionals can share emergency health information in the future. We used a mixed methods approach in which semi-structured qualitative interviews and survey data were collected in parallel and analyzed separately. Results Participants were mostly female (74.0%), Black (43.3%) or White (38.0%), and had a high school degree or higher (88.0%). Most had prior COVID-19 testing experience (88.0%) and were vaccinated (82.7%). A variety of information sources were rated as being very trustworthy including medical professionals and social service organizations. We found that repetition of information from multiple sources increased trust; however, perceived inconsistencies in recommendations over time eroded trust in health communication, especially from government-affiliated information sources. Observations such as seeing long lines for COVID-19 testing or vaccination became internalized trusted information. Conclusions Public health professionals can leverage the reach and strong community ties of existing, reputable non-government organizations, such as physician groups, schools, and pharmacies, to distribute COVID-19 information about vaccination and testing.

Far-right narratives of climate change acceptance and their role in addressing climate skepticism

As research on far-right climate change communication focuses on climate skepticisms, little is known about how the far-right justifies climate acceptance—and what this might mean for environmental education and counter-communication. To initiate a discussion of communicative strategies through which far-right actors might become more accepting of climate mitigation, we, first, reconstruct the narrative structure underlying far-right climate acceptance. Drawing on insights this reconstruction provides and assuming that such acceptance contains lessons for persuasive communication with far-right skeptics, we, second, discuss a number of axioms for counter-communication to be used in environmental education and teaching practice.

ACTING USED AS A TOOL FOR TRAINING MANAGERS

In business schools in Western countries, acting is used as a tool for training managers. However, in the Eastern countries, including Romania, the concept is underdeveloped. In this scientific research, the opinion of both business professionals, i.e., managers with experience in this field, and students from the Faculty of Business and Tourism within The Bucharest University of Economic Studies on the usefulness of introducing acting courses to support the training of managers is investigated. The professionals interviewed believe that acting benefits a manager through the leadership and communication lessons it provides, helping them to manage situations by appealing to emotional memory, relating to their team members by using emotional intelligence, and sharing their vision by developing the qualities necessary for a leader. The students' perspective underscores the ideas expressed by practicing managers and demonstrates that management contains an artistic component to a significant degree and that acting as an art form is intertwined with management in beneficial ways. The overall conclusion of the study highlights students' confidence in the impact of acting on a manager's professional development. The percentage of students who would take acting courses if they were introduced in Romanian business schools is over 90% of all respondents. Thus, it can be stated that acting is a real tool for the development of a manager, which should be adopted and used by all Romanian business schools.

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in Senior High School English Classes

As technology continues to offer promising results in teaching and learning, teachers also shift their methods to maximize the potential it can offer. One popular method is the integration of mobile devices in teaching and learning macro skills. Thus, this study describes the implementation of the Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) strategy in Senior High School English classes. With the use of validated MALL-based lesson exemplars, the researcher has described the integration of MALL in different oral communication lessons in six public senior high schools. This involved qualitative analysis of classroom observations and focus group discussions with students. The results of the implementation revealed that the utilization of mobile devices can support language learning in several ways. MALL in English classes can be seamlessly integrated and provide access to authentic language input, practice opportunities, and personalized learning experiences. Even with the technical limitations during the implementation, students find learning English fun, engaging, and worthwhile. Thus, English teachers may use this research as a guide in their integration and implementation of MALL-based English lessons. Further, given the limitations of the study, it is recommended that larger-scale studies be conducted to examine long-term effects of MALL to provide a more comprehensive understanding of its potential to improve students’ language performance.

When the Tertiary Care Hospital Becomes Technologically Austere: Communication Lessons Learned from an American Health System Cyberattack

Introduction:Cyberattacks continue to plague medical systems across the world with nearly 24% of all cyber breaches impacting health systems. In Fall 2021, a large, tertiary care county hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA suffered a cyberattack, causing over four weeks of downtime, forcing the system to revert to paper charting and to operate without the electronic medical record (EMR) or internet. Communication in the Emergency Department is structured through the EMR system or wireless local area network (WLAN) phones, causing communication difficulties when online systems are disrupted.Method:In the twelve months following the breach, a series of communications-focused interviews with stakeholders including residents, faculty, nurses, and consultants were analyzed using a thematic analysis.Results:Through interviews, four key themes and recommendations were identified for every internet-dependent tertiary care system to establish and maintain communication links when the primary form of communication is compromised and access to internet is limited or nonexistent: Expect systems to fail–plan aheadDevelop multilayered communication tools that are stored and structured at different sitesNotify all affected teams immediately and initiate the downtime action planReassess and adapt the downtime action plan as information becomes availableConclusion:While every system is going to experience different struggles during cyberattacks and downtime, all hospitals can benefit from improving communication structures when the established communication pathways are no longer available. Consider cybersecurity threats in your emergency planning meetings and designate systems to protect your communication abilities during downtime.

The goal of explaining black boxes in EEG seizure prediction is not to explain models' decisions.

Many state-of-the-art methods for seizure prediction, using the electroencephalogram, are based on machine learning models that are black boxes, weakening the trust of clinicians in them for high-risk decisions. Seizure prediction concerns a multidimensional time-series problem that performs continuous sliding window analysis and classification. In this work, we make a critical review of which explanations increase trust in models' decisions for predicting seizures. We developed three machine learning methodologies to explore their explainability potential. These contain different levels of model transparency: a logistic regression, an ensemble of 15 support vector machines, and an ensemble of three convolutional neural networks. For each methodology, we evaluated quasi-prospectively the performance in 40 patients (testing data comprised 2055 hours and 104 seizures). We selected patients with good and poor performance to explain the models' decisions. Then, with grounded theory, we evaluated how these explanations helped specialists (data scientists and clinicians working in epilepsy) to understand the obtained model dynamics. We obtained four lessons for better communication between data scientists and clinicians. We found that the goal of explainability is not to explain the system's decisions but to improve the system itself. Model transparency is not the most significant factor in explaining a model decision for seizure prediction. Even when using intuitive and state-of-the-art features, it is hard to understand brain dynamics and their relationship with the developed models. We achieve an increase in understanding by developing, in parallel, several systems that explicitly deal with signal dynamics changes that help develop a complete problem formulation.

Factors in Becoming an Emotionally Positive English User in University Freshman Classes

English education in Japan has recently been changing to focus on communication skills. The purpose of this research was to identify how the emotional (foreign language enjoyment and foreign language classroom anxiety) and psychological (motivation and self-confidence) factors might differentially stimulate students’ attainment of higher English proficiency in student-centered communicative lessons. The classes included pair/group work with a point-addition system. A questionnaire was filled in by 108 EFL freshmen. A multiple linear regression analysis was calculated, and the results of the questionnaire exhibited that the students who had stronger motivation, self-confidence, and enjoyment could expect to receive higher TOEIC IP scores. The students' essay reports showed that the point-addition system introduced during the research might be a culprit for increasing the anxiety of even students with high English proficiency. Along with devising ways to lower students' anxiety (e.g. not using a stressful point-addition system), teachers are advised to use teaching methods that promote students’ positive emotions (FLE) that create more self-confidence and motivation through more communicative EFL activities.

PENGARUH MODEL PEMBELAJARAN CONTEXTUAL TEACHING AND LEARNING (CTL) TERHADAP MINAT BELAJAR PESERTA DIDIK PADA MATA PELAJARAN SIMULASI DAN KOMUNIKASI DIGITAL KELAS X MULTIMEDIA DI SMK SUMBER BUNGA

Without interest in learning from students, the learning process will not take place optimally and learning outcomes will not be satisfactory. This can be seen from the lack of interest in learning and the lack of activity in learning activities, as a result the learning process becomes less effective. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not there was an effect of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) learning model on students' interest in learning in Simulation and Digital Communication lessons at Sumber Bunga Vocational School. This research uses quantitative methods. The approach used is ex post facto research. The sampling technique used purposive sampling, namely 34 students of class X Multimedia at SMK Sumber Bunga. Data collection techniques used are observation, interviews, questionnaires, and documentation. Data analysis used normality test, validity test, reliability test, correlation test and t test. The results of the t test are known that the value of tcount = 2.875 while the value of ttable = 2.032 means tcount> ttable. Thus, it can be concluded that there is an effect of the CTL learning model on students' interest in learning in the subjects of Simulation and Digital Communication class X Multimedia at SMK Sumber Bunga with a moderate level of influence.

Investigating User-Generated Content in an Online Drug Recovery Forum: Lessons for Successful Computer-Mediated Communication of Social Support

Benefiting from social support in online health communities requires maintaining textual communication. Investigating the process and identifying successful patterns can guide devising interventions to help online support seekers. We propose new methods to investigate the relationship between support-seeking requests and response messages in an online drug recovery forum. We use LIWC2015 text analysis software to quantify the support-seeking messages and apply machine learning algorithms to code the amount of informational and emotional support in the responses. Our work has several findings regarding the language in request messages that would increase or decrease the chances of receiving more informational or emotional support in response. For example, expressions of positive emotions and self-reference in request messages were associated with receiving more emotional support, and messages that used words indicating close relationships received more informational support. These findings contribute to the current understanding of computer-mediated communication of social support in online health communities, identifying strategies to mobilize maximal social resources. Moreover, our proposed methods can be used in other studies to investigate the exchange of social support or similar topics on online platforms.

Communication lessons to be taken from the Covid-19 health crisis

Bu makalenin amacı Covid-19 salgınında ortaya çıkan bilgi kirliliğine dikkat çekmek ve dezenformasyona neden olan üç önemli aktörü (medya, siyaset, halk sağlığı uzmanları) açıklayarak, bunların yaşanan halk sağlığı krizine olan etkilerini ortaya koymaktır. Ayrıca yaşanan küresel sağlık krizinin – bilinen adıyla Covid-19’un – iletişim yöntemlerimizi nasıl etkilediğini, hangi yollarla iletişim kurduğumuzu ortaya koymak ve iletişimin merkeziyetini vurgulamaktır. Bu amaçla kriz iletişimi, halk sağlığı iletişimi, siyasal iletişim ve medya iletişimi olmak üzere dört ana başlık ele alınmış, medya iletişimi ise geleneksel medya ve dijital medya olarak iki alt başlığa bölünmüştür. Bu makale sonucunda ortaya çıkan baskın görüş, iletişimin her zamankinden daha merkezi olması gerektiği, veriden çok duyguya, empatik tavra, şefkate ve anlayışa ihtiyaç duyulduğudur. Ayrıca siyasilerin tıp uzmanları ile ortak hareket etmesi, yeni çıkan, güncel bilimsel bilgileri ağız birliği ederek açıklaması, belirsizlik ve güvensizliğe neden olacak açıklamalardan kaçınmaları gerektiğidir. Medyanın da pandemiyi politize etmeden, siyasi çıkarların üstünde toplumsal çıkarı önceleyerek iletişim kurmasının hayati önemi vurgulanmaktadır. Dijital medya araçlarından sosyal medyanın dikkatlice yönetilmesi, yanlış bilgilerin dolaşımının engellenmesi ve Endüstri 4.0 araçlarından da bu dönemde sosyal mesafenin sürdürülebilirliği için yararlanılması gerektiğinin altı çizilmektedir. Nihai olarak söylenebilecek sonuç, kriz olarak değerlendirilen bu olayın önlenebilmesi için önceden planlamanın yapılması, medya-siyaset ve halk sağlığı uzmanlarının ortak hareket ederek aşı görevi görecek rahatlatıcı uygulamaların zaman kaybetmeden hayata geçirilmesidir.

Flexible and scalable privacy assessment for very large datasets, with an application to official governmental microdata

We present a systematic refactoring of the conventional treatment of privacy analyses, basing it on mathematical concepts from the framework of Quantitative Information Flow (QIF ). The approach we suggest brings three principal advantages: it is flexible, allowing for precise quantification and comparison of privacy risks for attacks both known and novel; it can be computationally tractable for very large, longitudinal datasets; and its results are explainable both to politicians and to the general public. We apply our approach to a very large case study: the Educational Censuses of Brazil, curated by the governmental agency inep, which comprise over 90 attributes of approximately 50 million individuals released longitudinally every year since 2007. These datasets have only very recently (2018–2021) attracted legislation to regulate their privacy — while at the same time continuing to maintain the openness that had been sought in Brazilian society. inep’s reaction to that legislation was the genesis of our project with them. In our conclusions here we share the scientific, technical, and communication lessons we learned in the process.

Communication lessons learned from the 2017 measles-rubella campaign in India: perspectives from vaccine decision-makers.

In 2017, to reduce the burden of measles and rubella, a nation-wide measles-rubella campaign was launched in India. Despite detailed planning efforts that involved many stakeholders, vaccine refusal arose in several communities during the campaign. As strategic health communication and promotion is critical in any vaccine campaign, we sought to document lessons learned from the 2017 MR campaign from a strategic health communication and promotion perspective to capture lessons learned. To inform future campaigns, we conducted in-depth interviews through a perspective that is not usually captured, that of government and civil society stakeholders that had experience in vaccine campaign implementation (n = 21). We interviewed stakeholders at the national level and within three states that had diverse experiences with the campaign. Three key themes related to strategic health communication and promotion emerged: the importance of sensitizing communities at all levels through relevant and timely information about the vaccine and the vaccine campaign, leveraging key influencers to deliver tailored messaging about the importance of vaccines and mitigating vaccine misinformation rapidly. Our study findings have important implications for health communication and promotion research related to vaccine campaigns. The field must continue to enhance vaccine campaign efforts by identifying important health communication and promotion factors, including the importance of sensitization, trusted messengers that use tailored messaging and mitigating misinformation, as vaccine campaigns are crucial in improving vaccine acceptance.

The Impact of a Communication Training on the Birth Experience: Qualitative Interviews with Mothers after Giving Birth at Obstetric University Departments in Germany.

(1) Background: Patient safety is a pressing issue in healthcare. Besides economical and organizational issues, human factors play a crucial role in providing safe care. Safe and clear communication on both the healthcare workers’ and patients’ sides contribute to the avoidance of medical errors and increase patients’ and healthcare workers’ satisfaction. Globally, the incidence of experiencing at least one adverse event in obstetrics is about 10%, of which half are classified as preventable. According to international research, improving communication skills may decrease preventable adverse events. The research question was to what extent communication training for pregnant women impacts the quality of communication and mutual understanding during birth. (2) Methods: Communication interventions with pregnant women were conducted in two German university obstetric departments in a mixed methods research design, based on the Health Action Process Approach. The online classes covered the awareness of personal wishes, the understanding and usage of communication strategies, self-efficacy and empathy. This study presents the qualitative results. Out of 142 mothers who answered two questionnaires before the communication training and after the birth, 24 in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted to explore the subjective impact of the communication training. The results were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. (3) Results: The majority of participants felt incentivized to be aware of their personal wishes for birth and to express them. Perceived positive experiences with sufficient competency in communication, empathy and mutual understanding outweighed negative treatments and experiences in the hospital, some of which could be attributed to structural problems. (4) Discussion: The reported positive effects of the communication training underline the need but also the potential for communication lessons to reflect and improve communication skills in obstetrics. However, negative experiences due to structural problems in the healthcare system may be buffered by communication skills but not solved.

Erratum to Business Communication Lessons in Agility: Introduction to the Special Issue on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Erratum to Business Communication Lessons in Agility: Introduction to the Special Issue on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Business Communication Lessons in Agility: Introduction to the Special Issue on the COVID-19 Pandemic

This introduction explains our vision, inclusion criteria, and mission for a curated issue about business communication and COVID-19. We focus on the big picture of communication agility lessons from a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment. We also present a definition and a typology of agile business communication, largely drawn from the papers in this collection. These manuscripts investigate COVID-19 organizational communication measures and related strategies plus their outcomes across diverse stakeholders in multiple countries. Drawing from these contributions and other research, we conclude by outlining an agile business communication research agenda. Finally we inaugurate a new IJBC column, Spotlight on a Thought Leader in Business Communication.