Blackwell Reference Online

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Educational communication is an umbrella term that encompasses all speaking, listening, and relational constructs and concepts that relate to learning. In the past, researchers have been interested in characteristics of teachers that enhance or hinder learning; student characteristics that increase or inhibit learning; teaching strategies that augment learning; how best to give criticism of student writing and speeches; how best to evaluate student work; how public speaking is best taught; and what should be taught in speech communication and media curricula ( Staton-Spicer & Wulff 1984 ). More recent work has expanded to the effects of media on children, child development processes, and the use of pedagogical methods and newer technologies to facilitate classroom or distance education ( Waldeck et al. 2001 ). This essay includes discussion of some of the major and fairly consistent lines of research and findings that have emerged over the years. The speech communication discipline began as a group of teachers interested in how best to instruct students in the basics of public speaking ( Wallace 1954 ; →  Speech Communication, History of ). Interest in how to teach new and different facets of the field emerged on a regular basis in the academic journals as interest grew in public speaking, rhetoric, persuasion, and debate, and later in group, interpersonal, nonverbal, intercultural, ... log in or subscribe to read full text