General Communication Research Articles

COMMUNICATION AS A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY OF THE FUTURE ECOLOGIST

The article reveals communicativeness as a professional quality of the future ecologist. It has been established that in teaching ecology, emphasis is placed on strengthening the communicative orientation of the educational process. The concept of “communicativeness”, “professional communication” is revealed. It has been proven that communication is an important component of a large group of professionally significant qualities of a young specialist, as a quality necessary for performing professional activities. The peculiarity of the applicantʼs communicativeness is established, which is his theoretical training in the field of interpersonal cognition, interpersonal relations; laws of logic and argumentation; professional, in particular language etiquette; communication technologies. The criteria of productive professional communication are disclosed: creation of a favorable psychological climate, formation of certain interpersonal relationships in the team. The organization of productive communication of future ecologists is highlighted, which implies the presence of a high level of development of communicative skills, which can be formed only in the presence of certain communicative abilities. Two groups of communication skills are distinguished: general communication skills and special professional communication skills. Blocks of laboratory and practical classes are proposed for the formation of communication skills of future ecologists. The main requirements for the formation of professional communication skills in future ecologists are revealed: the ability to form a system of theoretical knowledge on the problems of professional communication; availability of skills and abilities in theoretical development and conducting socio-psychological training; the ability to organize during production practice the inclusion of applicants in professional activity (in particular, in its communicative aspect) and to ensure its psychological analysis; willingness to organize and guide the independent work of applicants regarding the formation of professional communication skills and the ability to diagnose the level of their formation. The content indicators of the communicative core of the personality are highlighted.
 Keywords: communication; interaction; professional quality; future ecologist; favorable psychological climate; interpersonal relationships in the team; communicative training.

Preventing Zoonoses: Testing an Intervention to Change Attitudes and Behaviors toward More Protective Actions.

Zoonotic outbreaks are considered one of the most important threats to public health. Therefore, it is important to educate people on how to prevent zoonotic infections. The purpose of this research was to investigate an intervention aimed at changing people's attitudes and behaviors toward more protective actions. In two studies (NStudy1 = 402; NStudy2 = 706), participants received an intervention based on previous literature in which knowledge about zoonoses, protective actions they could take, and a fear appeal were provided. In the control condition, no intervention was given. Subsequently, we measured participants' risk knowledge, attitudes and behavioral intentions to reduce zoonotic risks, and fear. The results showed that the intervention heightened participants' zoonotic knowledge and affected their attitudes and behavioral intentions (Studies 1 and 2) and a behavioral decision (Study 2) to reduce zoonotic risks. Moreover, our designed intervention proved more effective than the World Health Organization informative message on zoonoses (Study 2). In terms of theory, this is the first experimental demonstration that a general zoonotic risk communication message changed attitudes and behaviors toward more protective actions. In terms of policy, this research showed that a basic information message for the broader public has the potential to reduce zoonotic risks.

Telemedicine for glaucoma: the state-of-the-art and trends of development

Glaucoma is the top leading cause of ophthalmic-related disability in almost all Russian regions. It is a chronic lifelong disease which requires regular monitoring (once a year or more often) in a medical facility. Since the population is aging, the prevalence of glaucoma is steadily increasing, which hampers access to medical care. Advances in telecommunications and diagnostic technologies have given rise to programs of TV glaucoma, which are used to pass the basic glaucoma parameters on to a specialist working remotely for interpretation. The Federal Law No 242-FZ on telemedicine came into force on January 1, 2018, but the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the development of information technologies in medicine in general and telemedicine communication in particular. The review presents the data on TV glaucoma programs which point to their effectiveness and provides practical advice. Potentially, telemedicine can facilitate access to medical care. The analysis of the economic factors shows that remote consulting is more cost-effective than traditional face-to-face examination of the patient. TV glaucoma programs often help detect glaucomatous changes in the ONH, so more patients with suspicion of glaucoma are referred for screening.. Publications focused on the experience in using active programs contribute to their further development and introduction to the public health system, which will eventually facilitate the access to quality medical care for patients with glaucoma.

Merdeka Curriculum: Educational Communication for Learning Recovery

This research aims to describe the Merdeka curriculum as a form of educational communication for the learning recovery period after the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is qualitative. The type of approach in this research is descriptive qualitative. The data in this research is secondary data in the form of scientific articles, documents related to research, and data from the internet. The technique used in this research is qualitative research with documentation study techniques / historical research or documentary study, namely searching for information related to the development of the research topic through news, official government documents, etc., which is then continued by compiling a bibliography of references related to the research. Research reviewed. This research indicates that the Merdeka curriculum is a form of educational communication for learning recovery. It is due to the gradual implementation of the Merdeka curriculum and the involvement of the social environment as a "learning space" by the nature of communication in general and educational communication in particular. It is a process with comprehensive interaction between the communication components involved.

A systematic review of effective parent-adolescent sexual and reproductive health information communication in lower- and middle-income countries

Background: Parents play an important role in the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of their adolescents. Parent–adolescent SRH information communication is cardinal and is expected to improve SRH outcomes of adolescents.Aim: The aim of this systematic review was to search for effective SRH information communication interventions in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to inform the adaptation of parent–adolescent SRH information communication intervention.Method: This is the first phase of an explanatory sequential mixed method study. The systematic review was carried out by employing Joanna Briggs Institute software for reviews. Search sources included Cochrane Reviews Library, EMBASE, CINAHL, PubMed, OVID, Scopus, Web of Science and Science Direct. A systematic search strategy was formulated, making use of the key terms: adolescent, teenager, youth, parent, mother, father, caregiver, reproductive, sexual, health, information, communication and intervention.Results: Five articles met the inclusion criteria for full-text screening. The interventions included addressed sociodemographic covariates; parent–adolescent general communication; parental monitoring; parent–adolescent communication about sex-related topics; parent’s sexual communication skills; parent’s self-efficacy in sexual communication; parent’s responsiveness to sexual communication; communication frequency; quality of sex‑related communication and information-motivational-behavioural skills.Conclusion: Findings suggest that evidence-based SRH information communication interventions are effective in improving parent–adolescent SRH information communication to optimise safe SRH behaviour in LMICs.Contribution: This systematic review identified effective SRH information communication interventions in LMICs, which can form the basis of further qualitative exploration for adaptation of a culturally sensitive intervention in Ghana.

Fostering language learning strategies through comparative linguistics: future directions for Azerbaijani higher education

The purpose of the study is to examine the motivation for using comparative linguistics methods, namely the methodology of the comparative language approach in English classes at Baku State University (BSU), and to show the levels of typological errors among students. In the paper an analysis of related literature was used. Among the sources that contained the key terms of the presented work, 30 were selected in order to describe the issue in the broadest possible way. In addition, for the practical part of the work, elements of comparative linguistics in the study of English among first-year students of the Faculty of Germanic Philology at the BSU were used. Students were divided into 2 groups. One of them studied English based on the tenets of comparative linguistics. The novelty lies in the fact that usually in the linguistic environment such subjects as comparative linguistics are introduced at the senior courses. The results of the study showed that based on the comparative linguistic method in the didactics of teaching a foreign language, bilingual students perceive the acquisition of English based on the comparison of sounds, morphemes, and lexemes at the associative level with their native language (despite the fact that Azerbaijani belongs to another group of languages) and has a systemic flexibility. Initially, one relied on the developed didactic methods of comparative linguistics. The final module showed better results for Group 2. The conclusions indicate that typological errors among BSU students are language “noise”. However, phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic errors can be eliminated through comparative didactics in foreign language teaching. It improves the general cognitive and metacognitive applicants’ abilities, strengthens their understanding of their native language, strengthens reading and writing, and develops general communication skills. So, the methodology of the comparative language approach is active, participatory, and motivating.

Robust cooperative output regulation for heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems with an unknown exosystem subject to jointly connected switching networks

This paper investigates the robust cooperative output regulation problem for heterogeneous lower triangular nonlinear multi-agent systems with an unknown exosystem over jointly connected switching networks. The problem has been studied for the exactly known exosystem over switching networks. However, the existing result for the unknown exosystem is still limited to the static networks. To ensure that all followers acquire the reference trajectory generated by the unknown exosystem through the jointly connected switching networks, by combining a set of auxiliary filtering variables and fixed-time stability theory, an adaptive distributed observer is designed. On the basis of the adaptive distributed observer and the distributed internal model approach, we propose a distributed controller under several standard assumptions to solve the problem. Compared with the similar work subject to the static networks, the controller in this paper is applicable to the more general communication network while weakening the assumptions of the controlled system.

Applying the Generalizability Theory to Identify the Sources of Validity Evidence for the Quality of Communication Questionnaire.

Effective doctor-patient-family communication is an integral and sensitive part of health care, assessing its quality is essential to identify aspects needing disclosure and, if necessary, improvement. Cross-sectional study aimed to analyze the sources of evidence of validity and the number of participants needed to reliably apply the Quality of Communication Questionnaire (QoC) through Generalizability Theory (GT). The mean age of the 150 patients hospitalized at the end of life was 50.5 (SD = 13.8)years, the mean hospital length of stay was 7.5 (SD = 10.2)days, 56.9% were male. Regarding the 105 patients' family members of patients whose mean length of hospital stay was 9.5 (SD = 9.1)days, their mean age was 42.2 (SD = 14.7)years, 69.5% were female. GT was used to quantify the minimum number of questionnaires needed, with the aim of reaching a reliable estimate of QoC with G-coefficients. To reach a reliability of .90, there is a need for 25 for the Eρ2 questionnaires and 35 for the Φ. The exact estimation identified the minimum number of questionnaires required for the evaluation of physicians by patients. To obtain a reliability of .90, there is a need for 30 and 40 questionnaires for the G-coefficients. A practical and fast application makes it possible to use QoC in its entirety or alone to evaluate general communication or communication about palliative care. Furthermore, based on these results, it was possible to identify which aspects were effective or ineffective in these contexts.

Responding to an unprecedented shock — Elucidating how 113 DMOs changed the marketing communications on Twitter during the COVID-19 crisis

This study analysed the changes in destination marketing organisation's (DMOs) marketing communications in response to the unprecedented shock of the pandemic. A total of 250,979 tweets and 44,560 replies by 113 DMOs before and during the pandemic were carefully examined using descriptive and time series analyses, topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and principal component analysis. The findings revealed four change patterns in Twitter usage: degrade, disseminate, engage, and elevate. Topic modelling identified 19 content topics and their five trends during the pandemic: falling, rebounding, maintaining, relapsing, and rising. Additionally, the four general content strategies — emotional, functional, informational, and experiential — provided a guideline and competitive landscape for DMOs to use in planning and devising their marketing communication strategies to handle such a shock. This study effectively addresses several research gaps, including the dearth of longitudinal, cross-country, and supply-side studies on crisis communications in tourism. As such, it enriches the existing body of knowledge by taking a comprehensive look at the diverse communication executions and strategies during both regular periods and crises. In doing so, it bridges the gap between theories of crisis communications and general social media communication strategies employed by DMOs.

Improving agricultural science communication through intentionality

AbstractAlthough communicating research is a key part of public science, current graduate curricula in the agricultural sciences usually have a narrow focus on communication appropriate for presenting to scientific and academic audiences, such as in the form of the dreaded “seminar.” Yet the importance and impact of agriculture extends well beyond research communities, and communicating with other potential audiences is essential for realizing the full impact of research. Because public speaking is among the greatest fears for many people, it is critical to provide students with the tools needed to communicate effectively with diverse audiences, particularly as only a fraction of them will go on to give regular research seminars once they enter the professional world. Better communication can lead to more constructive engagement with the public as well as with policy‐makers, toward improved understanding of the science they are funding and from which they are benefiting. Purposeful instruction in public speaking should help alleviate the common anxieties that student presenters often experience. Here, we summarize general communication strategies that can be incorporated into any graduate agricultural science course to help address this need.

Trust and subjective knowledge influence perceived risk of lead exposure.

Lead exposure is a persistent environmental hazard that poses risks to human health. But motivating protective action is challenging with this low visibility hazard whose health effects are often subtle and chronic. Higher risk perception is generally associated with taking protective measures, so public health efforts prioritize risk messaging. Yet, little is known about perceptions of lead exposure risk among the U.S. public. Using cross-sectional data from a national survey of 1035 U.S. residents, we measured the role of trust in government management of lead and subjective knowledge about lead as predictors of perceived risk of lead exposure, controlling for demographic and environmental factors. We also assessed if subjective knowledge moderated the relationship between trust and perceived risk. Our results reveal positive relationships between trust in government management of lead, subjective knowledge about lead, and risk perception, which we attribute in part to the important role government agencies play in secondary prevention, or communicating the risks of environmental lead exposure. We also found that younger people and people living in a house built before lead paint regulations passed in 1978 perceived higher lead risks. Our findings suggest that general communication about lead risks should aim to increase people's subjective knowledge in a consistent and balanced way that improves trust in government messengers.

Couples' communication quality differs by topic.

Extensive research has demonstrated that couples' communication quality is related to many aspects of couples' lives, including relationship satisfaction. However, the possibility that the quality of couples' communication might vary as a function of the topic of communication and the implications of this variability have received relatively little attention. Accordingly, this study sought to examine (a) within-person variability in communication quality between topics, (b) associations with relationship satisfaction, and (c) associations with stressors focal to specific topics. Black coparenting couples (N = 344) reported on their communication quality around four topics: finances, children, racial discrimination, and kinfolk. Results indicated that communication quality significantly differed across topics. Communication quality was lowest for finances and kinfolk, significantly higher when discussing problems with children, and highest when discussing racial discrimination. Moreover, communication quality when discussing finances, kinfolk, and racial discrimination each uniquely predicted relationship satisfaction, even after controlling for each other and for general communication skills. Experiencing more stress around finances and children was associated with poorer communication quality in the focal area (and for financial stress, in some other communication topics as well), whereas the extent of racial discrimination was not significantly associated with communication quality for any topic. These findings reveal significant variability in couples' communication across topics and demonstrate that considering communication for different topics can offer unique information about couples' relationship satisfaction beyond general communication skills. Further research examining topic-specific communication quality may enhance understanding of and interventions for couples' communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Pedagogising Virtual Reality Technology

Digital technology has increasingly influenced all areas of education, including higher education, with subject-specific technologies developed for professional contexts alongside general communication and collaboration tools. This article draws on a case study conducted in a bachelor programme within building construction design in Denmark, tracking how teachers converted technical knowledge about virtual reality into teaching practice. This transformation process has crystallised different pedagogies, even within the same course. One pedagogical aim was for students to learn to use virtual reality (VR) as a professional competence, while another was to use VR as a tool for learning subject content (building design). This case study raises general issues regarding teachers' use of technology for teaching, addressed in the research tradition of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). However, to delve deeper into the educational transformation processes, this article adds an educational sociological perspective, including concepts from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). With this background, this article raises new questions about the TPACK concept and discusses how the technological knowledge domains in the TPACK model can be differentiated to reflect various digital technologies and their functions, particularly in professional education.

Exploring communication preferences of trans and gender diverse individuals-A qualitative study.

Trans and gender-diverse individuals experience adverse health outcomes that might be due, in addition to other factors, to stigma and discrimination in the health care sector. At the same time, the concept of person-centred care acknowledges the role of patient-physician communication in health care outcomes. This study aims to explore patient-physician communication preferences in trans and gender-diverse individuals. A qualitative interview study was conducted, including N = 10 participants between February and March 2022. Participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guideline, based on previous knowledge in person-centred care and sample specific communication. Participants were asked about their experiences and wishes in patient-physician centeredness. Analyses were conducting using a qualitative content analysis strategy. Mean age was 29.3 years; n = 6 participants identified themselves within the binary gender concept, while n = 4 identified themselves with a non-binary gender. Communication preferences for patient-physician communication were categorised into four themes: general communication aspects (e.g. active listening); the role of gender during appointments (e.g. appropriate/inappropriate addressing); gender-neutral language (e.g. experiences use of gender neutral language by physicians); own communication style (e.g. early outing and justification). Furthermore, possible contextual factors of patient-physician communication where found (e.g. trusting relationship). Adding knowledge to communication preferences of trans and gender-diverse individuals, this study was able to identify preferences that are specific to the sample as well as preferences that differ from the cis-gendered population. However, it remains unclear how the patient-physician communication preferences affects health care utilization and outcomes. German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS00026249).

Networks of Neurodevelopmental Traits, Socioenvironmental Factors, Emotional Dysregulation in Childhood, and Depressive Symptoms Across Development in Two U.K. Cohorts.

Previous population-based studies have identified associations between childhood neurodevelopmental traits and depression in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. However, neurodevelopmental traits are highly correlated with each other, which could confound associations when traits are examined in isolation. The authors sought to identify unique associations between multiple neurodevelopmental traits in childhood and depressive symptoms across development, while taking into account co-occurring difficulties, in multivariate analyses. Data from two U.K. population-based cohorts, the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) (N=4,407 independent twins) and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (N=10,351), were independently analyzed. Bayesian Gaussian graphical models were estimated to investigate pairwise conditional associations between neurodevelopmental traits (autism and ADHD symptoms and general cognitive, learning, and communication abilities), socioenvironmental stressors (academic performance and peer relations), and emotional dysregulation in childhood (ages 7-11) and depressive symptoms across development (ages 12, 16, and 21). In both cohorts, bivariate correlations indicated several associations between neurodevelopmental traits and depressive symptoms across development. However, based on replicated findings across cohorts, these pairs of variables were mostly conditionally independent, and none were conditionally associated, after accounting for socioenvironmental stressors and emotional dysregulation. In turn, socioenvironmental stressors and emotional dysregulation were conditionally associated with both neurodevelopmental traits and depressive symptoms. Based on replicated findings across cohorts, neurodevelopmental traits in childhood could be associated only indirectly with depressive symptoms across development. This study indicates that associations between childhood neurodevelopmental traits and depressive symptoms across development could be explained by socioenvironmental stressors and emotional dysregulation. The present findings could inform future research aimed at the prevention of depression in youths with neurodevelopmental disorders.

INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISES: AUGMENTED REALITY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF E-COMMERCE COMPANIES

INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISES: AUGMENTED REALITY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF E-COMMERCE COMPANIES

A novel distributed multi-slot TDMA-based MAC protocol for LED-based UOWC networks

Underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) networks are promising for many civilian and industrial applications due to underwater high-speed data transmission demand. This paper focuses on the distributed time division multiple access (TDMA) protocol design for UOWC networks. Unlike existing research, we focus on a more general underwater communication scenario where nodes are scattered, and node mobility is considered. We propose a distributed TDMA-based medium access control(MAC) protocol, called cluster-based cross-layer multi-slot MAC(CCM-MAC), which can assign multiple slots to each node according to the slot-occupying information. When using CCM-MAC, the network is divided into clusters. Each node maintains knowledge of the cluster topology and slot-occupying information of surrounding nodes through routing techniques; by updating this knowledge, collisions can also be detected and eliminated dynamically. Analysis results are presented to evaluate the performance of CCM-MAC, and simulations show that high network throughput and low collision rate can be realized in comparison with existing contention-based MAC protocols.

Augmented reality-based affective training for improving care communication skill and empathy.

It is important for caregivers of people with dementia (PwD) to have good patient communication skills as it has been known to reduce the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) of PwD as well as caregiver burnout. However, acquiring such skills often requires one-on-one affective training, which can be costly. In this study, we propose affective training using augmented reality (AR) for supporting the acquisition of such skills. The system uses see-through AR glasses and a nursing training doll to train the user in both practical nursing skills and affective skills such as eye contact and patient communication. The experiment was conducted with 38 nursing students. The participants were assigned to either the Doll group, which only used a doll for training, or the AR group, which used both a doll and the AR system. The results showed that eye contact significantly increased and the face-to-face distance and angle decreased in the AR group, while the Doll group had no significant difference. In addition, the empathy score of the AR group significantly increased after the training. Upon analyzing the correlation between personality and changes of physical skills, we found a significant positive correlation between the improvement rate of eye contact and extraversion in the AR group. These results demonstrated that affective training using AR is effective for improving caregivers' physical skills and their empathy for their patients. We believe that this system will be beneficial not only for dementia caregivers but for anyone looking to improve their general communication skills.

Most people share genetic test results with relatives even if the findings are normal: Family communication in a diverse population

PurposeWith increasing utilization of genetic testing, sharing genetic information can become part of general family health communication while providing biological relatives with important information about their own genetic risk. Importantly, little is known about motivations for and barriers to family communication of genetic information in historically underserved populations. MethodsUsing mixed methods, we explored patient experiences with family communication in a study population of English- and Spanish-speaking adults aged 18 to 49 years, enriched for participants from historically underserved backgrounds. Risk screening for hereditary cancer guided genetic testing for cancer risk genes and other medically actionable findings. ResultsMost participants overall (91%), including most with normal findings (89%), shared or planned to share their results with relatives. Common motivations for sharing results were to give relatives information about their genetic risk and because the participant thought the results were interesting. Reasons for not sharing were limited contact with relatives, perceptions of limited clinical utility for relatives, and concern that discussion of genetic information was stigmatized or taboo. ConclusionResults demonstrate high rates of sharing genetic information, indicate motivations for sharing go beyond facilitating genetic testing for relatives, and suggest general willingness to share genetic information as part of family health communication.

Psycholinguistic Aspect of Spelling Modeling Teaching

The article discusses the psycholinguistic aspect of modeling the Kazakh language orthography for students in higher educational institutions. The level of learners’ psychological features and abilities is determined by mastering the orthographic rules of the Kazakh language. Special attention was paid to forming students’ points of view, making reflective conclusions, and enhancing their effective use of communicative skills. This study deals with the help of the psycholinguistic direction, possible techniques to assess how a person perceives a certain concept, and how he or she uses the information to express it. Also, students' communicative skills, general communication, mental abilities, and self-behavior were taken into deep account in teaching Kazakh orthography. It was noted that the development of the student’s thinking system is as important as the improvement of his or her speaking skills in modeling teaching.When teaching with the help of modeling, it was taken into account that the more important the development of the student's thinking system, the more significant the improvement of his speech skills. Attention is drawn to the fact that modeling training plays a special role in the development of communicative and cognitive competencies of future professionals. Thus, students were taught mutual consent, communication, exchange of opinions, defending their opinions and reasoned speech. The work in this area also took into account the psychological readiness of students to interact.