Introduces and comments on articles in this symposium issue. Contends that speech teachers have methods to overcome communication problems. Challenges them to sort their methods out, test and phrase them in clear language, document assertions from their own classroom investigations, and eventually build a theory to help people improve their…

Findings demonstrated that the reason students enrolled in a Speech Confidence Laboratory was to improve their speaking skills and to reduce their fear of speaking. Although findings indicated that the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) was not the decisive factor influencing students' enrollment, the PRCA is an adequate…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the communication training needs of managers in large businesses; (2) sociolinguistic signals of role in university office-hour interactions; (3) the determinants of participation in…