Research into asynchronous online discussions (AOD) produced conflicting, contradictory results. A central problem was AOD often did not produce a high level of engagement and critical thinking. Synthesizing best practices, a dialectical framework was developed around concrete, actionable levers to improve thinking in online and remote courses.…

Objective: Individuals with autism who are minimally speaking often rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Communication partner training is an integral element of AAC intervention, and parents are ideal communication partners for supporting their child's language development skills. Asynchronous, online trainings may offer…

The three research papers completed and compiled to make up this dissertation explore the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education courses in the instructional technology field. Paper 1 is a literature review of the interaction analysis model (IAM)…

This dissertation uses a discourse studies approach to investigate key communicative processes by which digital technology is given situated meanings within the institution of public education, including at the level of official discourse, administrative textsp, and the spoken discourse of professional educators. The discursive processes under…

This action research study explores the impact that a nonverbal communication intervention could have on confidence levels of women with a mental diagnosis during the job interview process. The subjects of the pilot intervention were six women who were associated with the organization and who volunteered to participate in the study. These six…

Background: Discourse analysis is an important component of aphasia assessment because it can provide an insight into functional communication abilities. However, there are many unknowns regarding the levels of discourse breakdowns that occur across aphasia types. The purpose of the current study is to explore the possible differences in…

When speaking, people often produce gestures that are closely timed with the speech with which they constitute a semantically coherent unit. Analyzing the temporal patterns between the two modalities may reveal insights about how speakers plan them. Using elicited narratives, we tested English/French monolinguals and bilinguals to check whether…

This chapter explores how communication studies focuses on human communication among people in groups, teams, and organizations. While persuasive communication has long been at the heart of leadership development, the discipline's contributions to effective leadership also range from advancing our understanding of organizational communicative…

Challenged by COVID-19, we sought ways to increase engagement in the virtual classroom, capitalizing on a popular multiplayer game to teach persuasion to undergraduate students. In the game "Among Us[R]," players ("Crewmates") work together to repair their spaceship before it explodes while being attacked by other players…

Problem-oriented teaching (POT) activities are important in classroom instruction. The level of student response can be influenced by different teacher behaviours in POT. However, the characteristics of teachers' multimodal behaviours at different levels of response are unclear. This study applied epistemic network analysis to explore the…

Despite the global trend of growing diversity in student enrolment, most teacher education programmes remain inward-looking, oriented to national core standards and resist academic calls for internationalisation. While we agree that internationalisation at home is possible under certain circumstances, we put forward the argument that dialogic…

This study examined the communication styles of rectors and vice-rectors of German public universities during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore the influence of gender on leadership communication. We collected data from social media and university websites; and analysed the language used to identify transformational, transactional, and servant…

The aim of this research was to investigate how young students can be supported to use Socratic Seminar as a tool for critical thinking skills and deep, dialogic discussion of complex texts through use of picturebooks. In this teacher action research study, a first-time kindergarten classroom teacher supported by a university professor, enhanced…

This qualitative study explores the perceptions of 24 female first-grade teachers from northern Israel regarding parental emotions during their children's transition to first grade. Using semi-structured interviews, it examines the teachers' communication strategies and their self-assessed skills and training to effectively engage with parents at…

This study reports on the linguistic and sociocultural affordances available to multilinguals through their engagement in a social learning space at a Community of Practices (CoPs). Despite the existence of studies on CoP in language learning contexts, however, little work has been conducted on the affordances of a multilingual learning community,…