Fostering and Assessing Critical Listening Skills in the Speech Course

In this article we present the results of two listening assessments conducted in spring 2013 and fall 2013. Our primary goal is of a pedagogical nature and is concerned with the design and the testing of a tool that could measure students’ critical listening skill improvement during the span of a semester. A total of N = 370 students participated in two quasi-experimental studies in which we developed a program to foster and measure critical listening skills. Results show that students’ listening skills improved in specific aspects of critical listening at both times. Effects were larger in the second round due to adjustments to both the course curriculum and the assessment tool. Results support the impact of the intervention by modest to high effect sizes and the construct validity of the assessment tool. We consider the improvement that was found in the current study an important beginning and recommend that the practice of listening skills becomes an integral part of the curriculum at the undergraduate level.     

An Exploratory Essay on Listening Instruction in the K-12 Curriculum

This article presents a reanalysis of a previously reported study on the impact of the Tomatis Method of auditory stimulation on subjects with autism. When analyzed as individual case studies, the data showed that six of the 11 subjects with autism demonstrated significant improvement from 90 hours of Tomatis Therapy. Five subjects did not benefit significantly, at least not on the measures used in this research. The results of this study support previous findings reported in peer-reviewed research.

The benefits from the Tomatis Therapy varied from subject to subject. In this study, one subject transitioned from nonverbal to verbal, one began to spontaneously repeat words, and others increased their receptive and expressive vocabulary. Additional findings included improvements in skills of daily living, motor skills, socialization, and overall communication skills. The findings of this study also indicated reductions in hyperactivity, atypical behavior, and inattention.     

高职工程测量专业《测量学基础》课程建设与实践

从高职院校工程测量专业的教学特点出发,根据多年的教学经验,结合铜仁职业技术学院工程测量专业的实际情况,对工程测量类专业《测量学基础》课程在教学内容、教学方法、技能水平的培养及项目评价等方面进行了有关探讨。     

Comparing the Effectiveness of an Online Human Diversity Course to Face-to-Face Instruction

ABSTRACT

This study expands the literature of online human diversity courses in social work by comparing the effectiveness of these courses to face-to-face instruction. To measure effectiveness, pre- and posttests were completed by 117 students. The instrument used measured awareness of and ability to recognize cultural diversity and oppression and the level of belief that our society is just. The findings suggest that online and face-to-face students showed an increase in their awareness of diversity and oppression issues with little to no significant difference between the two groups. Although not statistically significant, the online students’ belief in a just world decreased, whereas their face-to-face counterparts showed an increase, which was an unexpected finding. Implications for online social work classes are discussed.     

Compassionate Listening: A Framework for Listening to the Seriously Ill

Present conceptions of listening, such as empathic or therapeutic listening, do not provide a way of alleviating the sense of being alone felt by individuals who are seriously ill or suffering in some other way. Compassionate listening, a kind of dialogic listening, provides a framework for approaching these significant listening situations that emphasizes our interconnectedness and our shared humanity and that seeks to overcome the isolation so commonly felt during serious illness.     

Outcomes of ITV and Face-to-Face Instruction in a Social Work Research Methods Course

ABSTRACT

The heart of social work is relationship. IVT literature implies obstacles to interaction, but overlooks the centrality of relationship and challenges in distance education for teaching and modeling social work relationships. This article addresses how to ensure in the moderately-sized (40 students) IVT classroom that relationship remains integral to effective social work practice.     

Listening Competency on Campus: A Psychometric Analysis of Student Listening

Primarily used in corporate and organizational contexts, this study evaluates the psychometric properties of the 30-item Organizational Listening Survey (OLS) as a measure of listening behavior with a sample of undergraduate college students. The first study analyzed 1,475 students' self-reports of their listening behavior on campus, indicating a single-factor model of listening with strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .96), incorporating aspects of affirming the relational partner as well as confirming the message communicated. The second study involved students' other-reports of their professors' listening behaviors. It demonstrated high interrater agreement using the OLS to evaluate a common professor.     

对陕西省部分精化企业职工的有机化学课程内容调查

通过对陕西省部分精细化工企业职工进行问卷调查,得到了精细化工企业职工日常工作必须、够用的《有机化学》课程知识与技能要求,对在精细化工专业进行有针对性的《有机化学》教学提出了一些可行性建议。     

A Program for the Improvement of Instruction in American History

Although much energy has been spent designing children's books and curriculum to bring issues of diversity and acceptance into classrooms, perhaps the most meaningful and relevant curricular materials only require a digital camera and a space for students to talk about photos of their own classroom community, creating an organic and everyday curriculum. From over three years of research in a preschool classroom, the researcher-author tells how she uses digital photography to allow students to examine and reimagine their own social community. She revives the pedagogies of seminal social educators like Vivian Paley and Fannie Shaftel while offering a photo methodology for researchers of children who are interested in better understanding children's peer culture. As play is perhaps the most important vehicle of social education, carving out a time and space in the school day for a reflective component with digital photography can be an interesting and empowering way for children to examine social dilemmas and confront inequities.     

A Contingency Framework for Listening to the Dying

Listening to the dying poses special challenges. This paper proposes a contingency framework for describing and assessing various circumstances when listening to the dying. It identifies current approaches to listening, applies the contingency framework toward effectively listening to the dying, and proposes a new type of listening called perspective-taking listening. The framework provides guidance in how to improve listening to a dying person.     

A Listening Competence Comparison of Working Professionals

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role that biological sex plays in the relationship between personality and active-empathic listening. Two models were estimated and tested, one including biological sex as a covariate, and one excluding biological sex. Participants (N = 162) completed measures of active-empathic listening and personality. Results from regression analyses examining personality effects with sex as a covariate differed from the results of analyses excluding sex. The discussion section highlights the need for researchers to consider the interrelated roles of sex and personality in examinations of active-empathic listening.     

英语专业基础英语课程教学模式改革与实践

根据国家教育部2000年颁布的新《高等学校英语专业英语教学大纲》,本文论述了英语专业基础英语课程教学中存在的具体问题,对吉林农业大学英语专业基础英语课程教学模式的系列改革进行了分析,并总结了所取得的成果与经验。     

A Preliminary Look at Listening Development across the Life-Span

This article addresses the issue of listening behavior from a life-span developmental perspective. While communication scholars have begun to assess the impact of life stages on human communication needs and abilities, little work in listening behavior has focused on the effects of aging. The authors of this exploratory study developed a self-report listening questionnaire and administered it to five cohorts of pre-adolescent children, adolescents, young adults, older adults, and elderly in various geographic regions. Different cohorts provided differential accounts and perceptions regarding listening behaviors in particular and respective issues associated with listening development in general.     

Queens Field Instruction Center: A Field Instruction Center for Multilevel Education in Social Work

This paper will describe the organization and educational program for undergraduate and graduate social work students in the Queens Field Instruction Center, an administrative unit that provides a closer working relationship between schools of social work and social agencies on all levels. The center's structure and program allow for the concurrent and integrated placement of social work students. Research opportunities are offered to identify and conceptualize the outcome and learning experience for each level. The field instruction program offers further research possibilities in examining whether multimethod training provides students with skills equal to those receiving single-method training.     

A Broader Understanding of the Ethics of Listening: Philosophy,Cultural Studies,Media Studies and the Ethical Listening Subject

This study investigated the effects of Mozart's high-frequency-rich music and structured oral directions on third graders' auding and reading comprehension performance. The design was pre-post, with a control group and two experimental treatment groups. Mozart Symphonies Nos. 35, 38, 40, and 41, and four Frank Schaffer listening skills books were used with one experimental group. The second experimental group received the listening instruction without music. The control group worked assorted word searches. The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (Forms 1 and 2, Primary C) and the Addison-Wesley Sequential Test of Educational Progress (STEP) III (D) Listening Test (Form X) were used to measure reading comprehension and auding respectively. Instruction was administered by regular classroom teachers to intact classes for 30 minute morning periods, three times per week for eight weeks. Analysis of pretest and posttest scores from 63 students reveal that an organized instructional method using Mozart's music and oral directions significantly increases auding and reading comprehension, with music being the key independent variable.     

Responsive Listening in Long-Married Couples: A Psycholinguistic Perspective

Positive and responsive listening behavior benefits marital satisfaction, but previous reports have examined emotionally positive behavior confounded with responsive behavior, and focused primarily on younger marriages. Psycholinguistic views of listening suggest that responsive listening is distinct from emotionally positive listening. The former may change with an aging relationship, while the latter is unlikely to do so. Long-married couples share extensive common ground about recurrent conflicts, reducing the need for some listening behaviors. We observed 79 younger and older married couples, happily and unhappily married, discussing conflicts. We coded listening behaviors indicative of attention and comprehension (responsiveness) as well as those expressing emotions. We expected that older married couples would display lower frequencies of responsive listening behaviors than middle-aged couples. Results provide conditional support for this hypothesis. Implications for research on marital communication and aging are discussed.