Recently, Dr. Jordan Atkinson, assistant professor of communication, published a peer-reviewed journal article with two coauthors and former students, Joy Deatherage, 2020 MWSU graduate in Communication and current MBA student at MWSU, and Nicole Bilby, 2020 MWSU graduate in Communication. This qualitative research paper, “Exploring Student Motives for Communicating with Classmates,” was published in the 2021 edition of the Journal of the Speech and Theatre Association of Missouri. An earlier version of this research study was presented at the 2020 National Communication Association annual convention. In the article, two categories of student motives were discovered: class-specific motives and relational motives. The researchers hoped to provide educators with insight about student communication dynamics with their classmates.
