Lamm Lab members traveled over the Blue Ridge Mountains to beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, to discuss communication research and application at the 2023 Association for Communication Excellence Conference.
During the three-day conference session, lab members presented both papers and posters and attended professional development workshops in which they had the opportunity to learn about challenges faced and solutions presented by college of agricultural and environmental science communication professionals. Additionally, they received the exciting news that an article from a May 2020 study from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was awarded the Journal of Applied Communications Article of the Year. Click here to learn more about the Article of the Year honor.
Kicking off the Conference with Posters
The Lamm Lab was well-represented at the Sunday evening poster session in which there were two research posters and one innovative idea poster.
Data Visualization’s Hidden Power to Communicate Impact Evaluation Results: Need for Innovation
Authors: Tatevik Markosyan, Allison R. Byrd, Olivia M. Erskine, Millicent Oyugi, Alexa J. Lamm, Jana Foxe , & Elizabeth Litzler
The innovative idea poster detailed simple, effective ways in which data visualization can be used in displaying the results of project evaluations. This study was born from a project in which Tatevik Markosyan, Olivia Erskine, and Allison Byrd collaborated with Drs. Millicent Oyugi and Alexa Lamm to help in their evaluation efforts of the NSF Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Aspire Alliance regional change efforts for increasing diversity in STEM. The evaluation team also included Jana Foxe and Dr. Elizabeth Litzler at the University of Washington, who provided guidance and feedback about the project as a whole.
The Aspire Alliance’s regional change initiative connects underrepresented groups (URG) of graduate students with geographically related community colleges and gives them the opportunity to complete a mentored teaching practicum. This portion of the evaluation sought to understand how the URG graduate students’ knowledge, skills, career confidence, and interest in community college teaching changed as a result of the teaching practicum. The authors recommended using data visualization, along with strategic branding, to effectively communicate evaluation impact to project stakeholders.
Examining Gender Differentials in Green Consumption Values of Young Consumers to Inform Pro-Environmental Science Communication
Authors: Millicent A. Oyugi, Allison R. Byrd, Tatevik Markosyan, Olivia M. Erskine, Alexa J. Lamm, & Kevan W. Lamm
Dr. Millicent Oyugi’s research poster examined if environmentally friendly consumption values varied according to the gender of respondents at universities in Kenya, Nepal, and the U.S. while controlling for their age. Using the GREEN scale, which measures the environmentally friendly consumption values of respondents, Dr. Oyugi found that females’ GREEN scores were significantly higher than males’ GREEN scores. Additionally, green scores tended to covary by age, indicating young, female consumers tended to exhibit more pro-environmental behaviors. Therefore, young females could be effective change agents in inspiring others to adopt environmentally friendly practices in consumer change campaigns.
Informing Strategic Environmental Communication by Exploring How Demographic Characteristics Impact Environmental Consumption Values
Authors: Allison R. Byrd, Jessica Holt, & Alexa J. Lamm
This poster was a result of a non-probability, opt-in survey conducted during fall 2022 in an effort to examine conservation attitudes and behaviors of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama residents. This study also used the GREEN scale to inquire about consumers’ environmentally friendly consumption values but examined if they differed according to state and sex. A robust two-way ANOVA with 20% trimmed means found that there was a significant difference in GREEN scores by state, but there was no difference in respondents’ GREEN scores based on their sex. Further analysis revealed there were significantly different scores between each state with Florida having the highest score, followed by Georgia, and then Alabama. Researchers recommended further exploring why there were differences in environmentally friendly behaviors according to state. The results also implied the need to strategically market environmental campaigns differently according to target state in order to be most effective in social marketing campaigns.
Research Presentations
Cultural Dimensions and Communication: An Exploratory Study Informing Agricultural and Environmental Science Graduate Student Recruitment
Authors: Allison R. Byrd, Catherine E. Sanders, & Alexa J. Lamm
The paper used cultural dimensions to examine the communication preferences of prospective graduate students into colleges of agricultural and environmental sciences (CAES). Because information-seeking and critical thinking patterns can vary according to individuals’ cultural background, the authors wanted to know if students from collectivist backgrounds valued the same communication tools as students from individualist backgrounds when searching for a graduate institution. To determine this, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 9 international students and 10 domestic students within UGA’s CAES. The findings revealed both student groups preferred email communication and valued lab and departmental websites, while students from collectivist cultures were interested in the social aspects of labs when perusing websites. Collectivist students were also more likely to mention social media for connecting with current students and using journal articles to understand research ethics and culture of prospective advisors. Finally, individualist students relied on in-person visits and interpersonal communication to solidify relationships with faculty members and existing students. The results implied creating more inclusive online experiences for collectivist students who may not be able to travel to visit universities in-person could be useful in creating relationships for these students who otherwise do not have an opportunity to form them.
Exploring the Social Media Health Information Seeking Patterns of Rural Residents to Provide Communication Strategies for Extension
Authors: Catherine E. Sanders, Kristin E. Gibson, Allison R. Byrd, Tatevik Markosyan, & Alexa Lamm
The authors sought to understand the information-seeking patterns of rural Georgia residents so that Extension professionals can best deliver health information to this critical audience whose behavior patterns and preferences may differ compared to that of typical urban audiences who are seeking health information. Therefore, using a fall 2022 survey of rural Georgia residents, authors described information-seeking behaviors of respondents and divided them into clusters according to levels of social media use. Then, further analysis was subsequently used to describe the demographics of each cluster. There were strong associations between cluster membership and age, employment, marital statues, and educational level. The high social media users were more likely to trust health information from social media and have positive perceptions of receiving health information from social media, primarily Facebook, which was the preferred platform for all survey respondents. This indicated rural health initiatives from Extension should seek to target high social media users with health information and communicate with other audience groups in other ways to share this useful information. This paper was awarded the runner-up for outstanding research paper at the 2023 ACE Conference!
