Nicosia, G. (2005). Developing an online writing intensive course: Will it work for public speaking? International Journal of Instructional Media, 32(2), 163-170.

Increasingly community colleges are challenged to improve the basic skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening their students need for success in the business world and for transfer to a senior college. One attempt to meet the challenge has been to incorporate more writing assignments into classrooms across all disciplines. Concurrent with the need to improve basic skills has been an increasing use of technology in the classroom. Greater use of the internet for research, the use of email between students and teachers, and the use of course sites to put all or part of a course online has been a growing trend. While many subjects might lend themselves to these approaches, communications courses are more problematic due to the inherent nature of the face-to-face interaction and emphasis on oral rather than written skills. In this article the author describes how she combines the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative and the use of technology to support writing in teaching a public speaking course at a community college. Results of a student survey are included as well.

Gayle, B.M. (2004). Transformations in a civil discourse public speaking class: Speakers' and listeners' attitude change. Communication Education, 53(2), 174-184.

Learning to engage in civil discourse requires students to maintain an openness to new points of view and attitude change. In a public speaking course based on principles of civil discourse, classroom procedures were designed to foster subjective reframing by engaging students in the disorienting exercise of supporting multiple perspectives on the same topic. Based on extensive coding of listeners' journals, speakers' videotaped reports, and pre/postassessments of attitudes toward controversial topics, results warranted the conclusion that public speaking courses may be better designed for speaker transformation than for listener transformation. Overall results have implications for educators designing public speaking courses and those interested in preparing students to participate in civil, robust, and effective public discourse. In particular, more potent methods for engaging students as listeners need to be implemented.

Marcus, D.K. & Miller, R.S. (1999). The perception of "live" embarrassment: A social relations analysis of class presentations. Cognition & Emotion, 13(1).

This study explores embarrassment in class presentations. Round robin analysis, where each student rates every other student in class, was performed throughout the semester with around 100 introductory speech students at multiple southwestern universities. It was discovered that audience members can tell when a presenter is embarrassed. However, presenters tend to perceive others' perceptions of their embarrassment as greater than it actually is, possibly leading to an unrealistic fear of embarrassing situations. Also, observers were unable to distinguish embarrassment from other similar emotions.

Astin, A.W. (1993). What matters in college: four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

From the author of Four Critical Years - a book the Journal of Higher Education called the most cited work in higher education literature - What Matters in College? presents the definitive study of how students change and develop in college and how colleges can enhance that development. Based on a study of more than 20,000 students, 25,000 faculty members, and 200 institutions, the book shows how academic programs, faculty, student peer groups, and other variables affect students' college experiences.