Published theories are debated publicly and revised as necessary to accomodate demonstrated errors and newly received data. Thus, theories lead to further observations and experiments which lead to better theories, and so on as the process continues. From this point on your teachers must, and will, insist that you undertake your studies in a disciplined, and increasingly mature, manner. In part, then, this class is designed to set a standard for the amount and quality of work that your professors will expect of you in future Communication courses. There are certain elemental definitions that most, if not all, communication scholars accept.
Human communication is physical, psychological and social.
For human beings, communication is unavoidable. Thus, the discipline of Communication investigates an element of reality that we find ourselves unable to ignore. Two basic methodological approaches to communication research have grown from these definitions. Quantitative research methods represent observations in the form of numerical data which are then analyzed by means of generally accepted mathematical methods. In Communication research, statistics is the most widely used mathematical method.