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The purpose of this paper is to draw from the authors’ experiences, as women teaching Communication in a College of Engineering and mechanical engineering students’ evaluations, to highlight student resistance to both practices and bodies deemed “feminine.”

The authors examine how the masculine discipline of engineering might construct a learning environment that is incompatible with feminist ideals. This is illuminated when engineering students are required to learn communication skills from female instructors.

The authors’ analysis suggests that students’ resistance to communication instruction is gendered. Students often constructed hierarchical relationships where communication was considered “soft” in relation to the “hard” science of engineering instead of integral to the discipline and profession. Students resisted by expressing a lack of utility of information, devaluing feedback and instruction, degrading communication teachers, and questioning their bodies.

The paper discusses implications of a gendered educational context and suggests ways interdisciplinary instruction can be utilized to enhance gender diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what physics and chemistry preservice teachers learn on the nature of the inquiry tasks and about classroom communication in an inquiry task when they take part in a lesson study.

This is a qualitative and interpretive research which was carried out within a master’s degree course in physics and chemistry teaching with three preservice teachers. Data were collected from participant observation with video recording, interviews, written reflections and group report by the preservice teachers. This two-cycle lesson study was conducted over 12 sessions. The data analysis took place through asking questions and using the constant comparison method, which allowed the identification of the most relevant issues about the preservice teachers learning according to the categories nature of the inquiry tasks and communication promoted by the teacher.

The results show that the preservice teachers learnt to identify the characteristics of inquiry tasks, how to develop an inquiry task when planning the research lesson and acknowledged its potential for student learning. Moreover, the preservice teachers acknowledged the fact that the classroom communication promoted by the teacher fostered student participation, negotiation of meanings about scientific concepts and construction of new learning that can be shared within the class.

Research is needed as regards how initial teacher education providers may contribute to the learning of preservice teachers in lesson study in initial teacher education programmes.

This research contributes to show potentialities of lesson study in the initial teacher education of preservice physics and chemistry teachers.

This paper examines the impact of communication technology and human-related factors on teacher, student and course performance, in particular on teacher's clarity, perceived value of the course and student learning.

Communication technology factors are analyzed in terms of social media use, while human-related factors are considered through teacher expertise and communication skills, more specifically non-verbal communication (NVC). The research model is tested on a sample of 303 students from two European universities, one in Southwestern and another in Southeastern Europe.

Findings reveal dominance of human factors over technology ones. Culture moderates some of the relationships examined.

Notwithstanding the relatively limited sample of students according to their national culture, this work offers valuable insights into the impact of technology use in classroom and teacher communication skills.

Teacher NVC and expertise override their use of technology-mediated communication in classroom. Findings have raised important questions whether social media applications should actually have place in nowadays education systems. What seems clear from this research is that technology advancements cannot replace teachers, although further research is necessary to re-examine their impact on different student outcomes and in different cultural contexts.

The originality of this paper lies in comparing the impact of technology vs human-related factors on classroom performance. An additional contribution is provided by considering the moderating role of national culture within the proposed research model.

In the digital era, the dynamics of the communication process in classrooms have changed significantly. With the help of computer-mediated communication techniques, especially animation, teachers can deliver a distinct learning experience to students that can be fun, while presenting complex ideas in simpler forms. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of animation in education, in the context of developing Asian countries, using Karnataka, an Indian state, as a study area.

This paper uses the field experimental method to assess animation’s effectiveness in education. Attempts are made to neutralize the influence of extraneous factors, such as psychological conditions, and the socio-economic background of students, while assessing academic performance. To achieve this, a fuzzy-set-theory-based two-sample statistical hypothesis test is used.

Results indicate that animation can be used as an effective tool for communication in pedagogy and, if used properly, can improve students’ academic performance in primary education, even in developing countries such as India.

The paper’s limitations are explored, and point to how future research could use more advanced statistical tools to identify the motivational, behavioral, cognitive and psychological factors influencing students, when animation is used in education, and should perform a comparative analysis of the performance of students in developed and developing countries.

As the current study proves that animation is effective in education, even in developing countries such as India, efforts should be made to convert existing curricula into animated multimedia content. Currently, most government-run schools in India use traditional chalk-and-talk methods for teaching. The use of animated instructional material will help improve the standard of educational communication in classroom, and maintain consistency in delivering the curriculum.

The anxiety that usually comes with a speaking performance is said to be both personal and situational. Researchers have over the years sought to understand how the combined effects of personal traits of an individual and situational conditions such as the nature of the speaking environment, the size of the audience and negative perception over the outcome of a speech, affects a person’s ability to effectively communicate. While studies on speech-related anxiety in the academic environment is not new (Basic, 2011; Behnke et al., 2006), the attention of many of these studies has focused on students rather than lectures/instructors. While this study is not the first to focus on the role of lecturers in reducing the incidence of speech anxiety, the purpose of this paper is to stress the role of lecturers in reducing speech-related anxieties and its attendant effects on the academic and professional performances of students. It was found out that most speech-related anxiety is largely situational, rather than personal. The study found that out of fear of being negatively evaluated, students became highly apprehensive when asked to perform a speech-related task in the classroom. This, the study found, can potentially have adverse effects on the academic and professional performance of students. Most importantly, the study established the significant role of lecturers in managing a friendly and pleasant environment that facilitate speaking and positive learning outcomes. As Varron (2011) asserts: “the teacher is the one that facilitates the whole process of leaning and create favorable environment, where there is a smooth flow of communication.”

In total, 40 respondents from the School of Communications of the African University College of Communications were sampled for the study. The selection of only communication students was premised on the study’s quest to unravel the irony inherent in the fact that those communication students that are by their training required to be voluble, tend to be apprehensive, especially under the classroom situation. Doing this was to inevitably help to find out whether or not there is a relationship between an individual’s career choice and the behavioral tendencies such a person is likely to exhibit. Again, the fact that communication students are more competent to speak on issues regarding any subject on communication makes them an ideal choice for this study. A stratified probability sampling method was used to group the sample into various layers (levels). The study using stratified sampling grouped the various respondents into their various levels (strata) and sampled ten respondents from each level. This was to help the study ascertain whether or not any relationship existed between a student’s level and the level of their speaking apprehension. A questionnaire, close and open ended, was employed as the study’s principal instrument for data. Each respondent was given a questionnaire each to respond to. A “descriptive statistical measure was used to describe the characteristics of the sample, whereupon conclusions were generalized for the entire study population.” In addition, graphs, charts, and frequency tabulation made from the coded data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences, after which the corresponding interpretation was assigned. To ensure accuracy, data were coded, entered, and cleaned. Tables and figures from the SPSS helped in making the results of the study easier to interpret and understandable.

The outcome of the administered questionnaire indicated that negative evaluation was caused by lack of adequate preparation, inferiority complex, fear of derision and needless comparisons among students. In respect of how fear of derision causes anxiety, it was found that fear of derision stifles students’ desire to be heard, makes students timid and prevents class participation. On the issue of why some student were deficient in the use of English language, it was found that poor reading habits, overuse of vernacular, obsession with the use of pidgin and apprehension following from the fear of making mistakes were the major causes.

The authors consider the proposed study original both in conceptualisation and design. The main question being interrogated stems from identified gaps in the literature and the study intends to fill these knowledge gaps. The study’s originality stems from the fact that there is paucity of information on the subject of study in the context of Ghana.

Despite the growing body of literature demonstrating the role of communication in educational settings, there are limited up-to-date studies exploring the use of an instant messaging (IM) tool and its impacts on students’ learning outcomes, especially in the tertiary education in Vietnam. This study approached IM as an out-of-class communication (OCC) approach in computer-mediated communication. The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ perceived quality of information received and its influence on their perceived performance proficiency as a result of their lecturers’ clarification of their enquiries through an online instant message application, namely Remind (www.remind.com/).

The target groups were first-year business students in an international university in Vietnam. The analysis of the data gathered from the questionnaire was carried out using a measurement model and a structural equation model.

The findings indicate that using OCC technology creates social bonding between students and lecturers by allowing students to clarify the ambiguity of concepts learnt in class and create a sense of connection with their lecturers which leads to better student engagement and hence improved learning outcomes.

The authors highlight the evidence of effective usage of IM tool by university students as a meaningful communication tool and the need to integrate technology into all educational settings.

The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on the necessity of incorporating practical and experiential learning modalities in higher education to prepare communication and relationship management students for engaging others in potentially conflicting socio-cultural heterogeneous settings. It is argued that cultural diversity sensitivity, cultivated in teaching modalities, could enhance social cohesion and aid nation-building endeavours. Participative action research was applied in a case study of second year communication students enrolled for a module concerning the application of relationship management in communication specialisms. Students generally comprehend the foundational theorem and praxis of communication and relationship management but failed to successfully apply these principles in practice. This impedes the emotional and intellectual preparation of students for work and negates social cohesion efforts in a diverse society like South Africa. The case study conclusively illustrates students' general anxiety to engage people from different ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds. Teachers should create ‘safe spaces’ in the classroom to equip and prepare students in utilizing the principles of communication and relationship management in politically charged and diverse settings. Innovative teaching strategies are recommended to foster harmony, tolerance, understanding and cultural sensitivity in Communication and Relationship Management education.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual framework as a six-stage guided implementation for educators to embed Canva (an online design tool) into their marketing subjects to encourage super-skills of the 21st century including stronger collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication which in turn increases a student's work readiness.

The framework is designed from sociocultural and experiential approaches of learning and teaching. It is based on dialogic and social learning theories and guided by the 21st century skills, experience, student interactions and reflections.

Based on the initial staff and student reflections and the author's extensive teaching experience, the implementation of Canva into marketing subjects suggests students are increasing their creativity, design, collaborative and critical thinking skills due to the unique features of the tool. This is suggestive that the implementation process developed through the conceptual framework of embedding Canva supported not only the students’ learning experience but allowed for a more immersive experience for teaching staff as well.

This paper provides a pedagogical and theoretically supported rationalisation for a staged approach to embed Canva into a classroom to assist educators in fostering students’ critical thinking skills, communication, collaboration whilst encouraging higher quality and creativity of assessments. This paper may have a continued flow on effect to student's work readiness by equipping them with a needed marketing tool in their career pursuits.