Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Appendix (CIEL) and Appendix A (BCE): The Discipline of
Communication
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. In many colleges and universities, departments related to communication studies
draw which of the following with regard to numbers of majors?
a. Equal to other disciplines
b. The fewest number of majors
c. The largest number of majors
d. No majors—communication classes used only as elective classes
2. Which of the following is an assumption of the social scientific approach?
a. The Truth exists.
b. The Truth must be hidden from others.
c. The Truth does not exist.
d. The ongoing Truth will never be known.
3. Which of the following is a disadvantage/criticism of the social scientific approach?
a. The approach focuses too much on including age and socioeconomic status in
research.
b. Education is heavily emphasized when selecting participants.
c. Race, religion, sexuality, and other characteristics of participants are not always
taken into account.
d. College students are rarely invited to participate.
4. When respondents in a research study tell the researcher what they think will make
them “look good” to the researcher, it is known as the ______.
a. social desirability effect
b. self-fulfilling prophecy effect
c. negative-attitude effect
d. socio-egocentric effect
5. Grounded theory is often used by which of the following?
a. Social scientific approach
b. Grounded approach
c. Interpretivist approach
d. Critical approach
6. The decision development perspective would be studied in which area of
communication?
a. Group communication
b. Interpersonal communication
c. Media communication/mass media
d. Rhetorical criticism
7. Which statement about political communication is correct?
a. Due to the temporary nature of their work, campaign staff members are unable to
form relationships.
b. Candidates cannot strive for positive relationships with voters.
c. Political communication scholars sometimes study voter behavior.
d. Political communication scholars have no way to study the talk about political issues
among friends, family, and acquaintances.
8. The first documented essay on communication was addressed to Kagemni, son of
Pharaoh Huni, in approximately what year?
a. 300 BCE
b. 3000 CE
c. 300 CE
d. 3000 BCE
9. The National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking later became
which of the following?
a. International Communication Association
b. National Communication Association
c. American Communication Association
d. Global Communication Association
10. Which is one of the two most important tasks of academic associations noted in
Chapter 2?
a. Collect membership dues
b. Have local social gatherings
c. Publish academic journals
d. Discredit other associations
11. The earliest focus of the communication discipline was which of the following?
a. Public speaking, debate, and performance
b. Mass communication
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
c. Interpersonal communication
d. Group communication
12. The study of rhetoric began in which of the following?
a. Interpersonal communication
b. Public address
c. Critical approach
d. Media studies
13. Which of the following became an area of study for mass media scholars only in the
early decades of the previous century?
a. Television
b. Newspapers
c. Radio
d. Books
14. When it comes to the origins of the communication discipline, writers are likely to
begin with ______ in the 4th century BCE.
a. Socrates
b. Plato
c. Aristotle
d. Copernicus
15. The earliest existing book on effective communication is Precepts, written in ______
by Ptahhotep around the year 2675 BCE.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. Greece
b. France
c. Germany
d. Egypt
16. The first formally organized professional association devoted to its study, the
______, was founded in 1910.
a. Eastern Communication Association
b. Southern States Communication Association
c. Western Communication Association
d. Central States Communication Association
17. The first national association devoted to the study of communication, currently
known as the National Communication Association, was established in ______.
a. 1904
b. 1910
c. 1911
d. 1914
18. ______ communication examines communication within a single culture.
a. Intracultural
b. Intercultural
c. Cross-cultural
d. Critical cultural
19. ______ communication examines communication when members of different
cultural groups interact.
a. Intracultural
b. Intercultural
c. Cross-cultural
d. Critical cultural
20. ______ communication compares the communication of different groups.
a. Intracultural
b. Intercultural
c. Cross-cultural
d. Critical cultural
21. ______ communication examines issues of power within cultural contexts and seeks
to contest hegemony and promote social justice.
a. Intracultural
b. Intercultural
c. Cross-cultural
d. Critical cultural
Multiple Response
1. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which members of society are perceived as having a
greater ability to impose their values and establish the nature of taken-for-granted
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
aspects of society?
a. Women
b. Men
c. White people
d. Heterosexuals
2. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. One method used by those taking a critical approach
involves the analysis of texts. Which ones might be considered for analysis?
a. Transcripts of interactions
b. Television
c. Music
d. Movies
3. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following would be considered part of
cultural communication?
a. Intracultural communication
b. Cross-cultural communication
c. Critical cultural communication
d. Intercultural communication
4. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Family communication studies can include which of
these areas?
a. Conflict
b. Violence
c. Celebrations
d. Groupthink
5. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Persuasion can also be called which of the following?
a. Coercion
b. Brainwashing
c. Discouragement
d. Manipulation
6. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Rhetoric studies all influences on communication,
including which of the following?
a. Media content
b. Technology
c. Architecture
d. Politics
7. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which ones are methods typically used in the
interpretivist approach to communication?
a. Experiments
b. Interviews
c. Textual Analysis
d. Participant observation
8. Which of the following are influential approaches to the study of communication?
a. Social scientific
b. Interpretivist
c. Focus group
d. Critical
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
True/False
1. The first formally organized professional association in communication was the World
Communication Association.
2. Aristotle and Socrates taught communication to the sons of wealthy citizens.
3. Rhetorical criticism is not limited to public address.
4. The methods used in the critical approach are very different from those used in
interpretivist approaches.
5. A critical approach avoids studying power within societal groups.
6. Researchers using the interpretivist approach primarily seek to understand and
describe communication experience.
7. Storytelling is not one of the areas studied in family communication.
8. In modern times, the communication discipline was formalized for academic study out
of studies of rhetoric, elocution, and speech.
9. Early on in the discipline, a person did not study communication; rather, a person
studied public speaking or speech.
10. The study of family communication is often placed under the broad umbrella term of
interpersonal communication.
11. Small-group research emerged as a major area of discipline beginning in the
1990’s.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public
Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
12. People enter into group situations with preexisting relationships that influence their
interactions and decision making.
13. Group members with little shared history or few preexisting relationships often
anticipate future connection or, at minimum, generate relational alliances and
adversaries within the group.
14. Linda Lederman has traced the origins of the study of health communication to the
1960s.
15. Early research in health communication focused on interactions between patients
and doctors and public campaigns concerning health issues.
16. Health communication can occur within social networks of friends, family, and