Why communication education is important: a third study on the centrality of the discipline’s content and pedagogy

ABSTRACT

The results of this study argue that communication, and specifically oral communication education, is critical to students’ future personal and professional success. Similar to two earlier studies, thematic analysis of 679 documents in academic and popular press publications, published from 2008 to 2015, provide support for the centrality of the communication discipline’s content and pedagogy. These results reinforce the importance of communication to enhancing organizational processes and organizational life; promoting health communication; enriching the educational enterprise; understanding crisis, safety, risk, and security; improving interpersonal communication and relationships; influencing diplomacy and government relations; being a responsible participant in the world, socially and culturally; developing as a whole person; and succeeding as an individual in one’s career and in business. The kinds of communication addressed as important in each of these nine general themes are outlined, and the results are compared with those in the first two iterations of the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Importance of communication education
• importance of oral communication education
• centrality of communication discipline
• rationale for communication education
• kinds of communication

Notes on contributors

Sherwyn P. Morreale (Ph.D., University of Denver, 1989) is Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Sherwyn P. Morreale may be contacted at [email protected].

Joseph M. Valenzano, III (Ph.D., Georgia State University, 2006) is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Dayton.

Janessa A. Bauer (M.A., 2015) is Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

Notes

1. Unless otherwise noted, all usage of “communication” or “communication education” is meant to refer to “oral communication” as opposed to “written communication.”