Steven Golen
"A Factor Analysis of Barriers to Effective Listening"

1. Purpose / research question
Golen's purpose is to determine which barriers are perceived to be the most frequently ecncountered that may affect listening effectiveness among business college students. Therefore, one of the things Golen wanted to know was whether or not the listening behaviors identified by previous research was useful. Golen found that there were "some similarities in listening behaviors across the studies . . . however, no studies identified any factors or dimensions of listening barriers" (27). More specifically, Golen wanted to know: what do students perceive as the most frequent barriers to listening; what are the most frequent barrier factors to listening for students; and how do listening barrier factors differs among students based on demographic variables.

2. Subject selection
Students were selected from a major soutwest state university and participants were made up of 400 students from 3 large business communication lecture sections, all of which were taught by the same instructor. The majority of the students were between the ages of 19 and 21.

3. Data collection
According to Golen, 279 students participated in the study (n=279). They were asked to respond on a Likert scale from 1 (meaning "most of the time") to 5 (meaning "never") across a continuum of responses to whether or not their listening was impeded or inhibited.

4. Data analysis techniques
In order to interpret the data, Golen decided to cross analyze the demographics of the particpants acording to majors, age, and sex. Golen was able to find that the only demographic variable affecting listening barrier factors is sex. You guessed it: Men don't know how to listen. lol.



Brenton Faber
"Popularizing Nanoscience: The Public Rhetoric of Nanotechnology, 1986-1999"

1. Purpose / research question
Through this study, Faber wants to know how popular media influences the way nanotechnology is framed in general periodicals such as newspapers and magazines. The question up for consideration is how the emerging technological field is presented in the popular science . In other words, how are already well established popular understandings of science exploited for the mediation of the introduction of this branch of science to the public?

2. Subject selection
Brenton Faber conducted a search for the words, "nanotechnology" and "nanoscience" through his university database, which generated 885 hits on the subject. They appeared in publications like Newsweek, Time, and Popular Science. Many of those articles were duplicated in the press and so he finally chose 203 articles.Faber identifies 1986 as the date when the first discussions of nanotechnology appear in the public media. Faber chose the date of 1999 because it marks a significant date of the early emergence of the field.

3. Data collection
Faber's research revealed that much of the research was represented to the public interms of science fiction, cybernetics, possible inventions, biographies of the scientists, and foreign competition.

4. Data analysis techniques
He notices that the representation of these scientific fields related to nanotechnology changed over time. Faber calls these temporal findings. This, for Faber, was important since it helped popular science writers present the findings of nanoscience into scientific terms already understandable to popular science audiences.


John M. Carroll, et al.
"The Minimal Manual"

1. Purpose / research question
The research question was based on what types of rhetorical/communication strategies worked best for conveying computer operation skills to general consumer audiences. There were two studies. One was made up of 19 subjects observed for this study. Nine of them were given a typical "owner's manual" to read, whereas the other ten were provided with a "minimal manual." Unlike the traditional ownver's manual" type instruction book, the minimal manual was more streamlined and user based. The second study was comprised of 32 subjects.

2. Subject selection
It is difficult to tell how the subjects were chosen. Randomly? From intact groups? It is clear that the subjects were familiar with clerical office work.

3. Data collection
According to the study, partipants were asked to complete training and performance across 8 different word processing tasks. The tasks involved formatting procedures, as well as storing (saving) documents on diskettes. Specifically, they were asked to: create and print a letter, created and print a bulletin, and revise a bulletin.

4. Data analysis techniques
It was found that students using the minimal manual required 40% less learning time.

Barry M. Kroll
"Explaining How to Play a Game"

1. Purpose / research question
The researcher wanted to know if students' informative writing skills could be generalized across age groups. In other words, they wanted to now if there was evidence of "growth" of students' informative writing skills.

2. Subject selection
There were 86 students from three age groups. The grouped ages were from 7, and. There were also 7 th and 11th graders, as well as college freshmen included in the study. The students were asked to explain in writing the instructions to 57 different games.

3. Data collection
Students learned how to play the games and then were asked to write game instructions. Kroll devised a way to see if students emphasized scoring procedures, game objectives, orienting information, or whether or not he explanatory approach was taken.

4. Data analysis techniques
Kroll determined that 7 and 9 year old provided the least informative insturctions. As students became older, they adopted an increasingly conversational tone in their game instructions. Ninth and 11th graders exhibited almost identical skills. Students found the excercise required for the study challenging and interesting.

Notarantonio & Cohen
"Effects of Open and Dominant Communication Styles on
Perceptions of the Sales Interaction "

1. Purpose / research question
The researchers wanted to know how communication styles influence student perception of sales effectiveness.

2. Subject selection
The subjects were selected from 80 undergraduate business administration majors at Byrant College. The study included 58.7% females ranging from ages 17-21, 73% of whom wre 18 years old. The study was comprised of 92.1% freshmen.

3. Data collection
Videotapes of sales associates talking about themselves. The researchers were categorized as open and dominant based on how persuasive they were in talking about themselves and how much they monopolized the conversation that was taped. Each tape had 4 different types of sales communicators selling programmable stereo systems. Subjects were randomly

4. Data analysis techniques
Researchers saw no significant difference between salespersons who weere very open and those who were dominant. In fact, the ones who dominated the conversation by talking about him/herself were least effective because they spent less time discussing stereo equipment.

What are the appropriate purposes for quantitative descriptive studies, how are subjects selected, how is data collected and analyzed, and what kind of generalizations are possible?
According to Lauer & Ashe, "the conclusions of quantitative descriptive research indicate the calculated strengths or weaknesses of relationships among variables. Reseachers can also determine significance and the amount of variance explained" (96). This kind of research is descriptive and not experimental because no control groups are devised. Subjects ought to be chosen based on how appropriate they are according to the variables and based on their availabilty.


What do quasi and true experiments seek to demonstrate, what does a "control grop" have to do with subject selection, how do "independent" and "dependent variable" impact data collection and analysis?
Quasi-experiments are useful when researchers have no way to randomize groups, like in a classroom setting when the groups have to stay together. Independent and dependent variables impact data collection insofar as pre and post tests are used to account for the influence to internal validity. Hypotheses are applied so that the nonrandomization can be formally addressed.