Presenting our wounds, healing the discipline: the problem of communication effectiveness

The central question of the forum call is, how have we harmed ourselves? To begin, we wish to explore the discipline ’ s value and the value given to its scholars. By de fi ning our value, we are able to see what harm we have caused; by determining our value, we can restore our disciplinary health and reclaim our identity and purpose. We argue the discipline has harmed itself by forgetting who we are. It has done that by losing its understanding of communication e ff ectiveness, especially in the assessment of the foundational communication course. As assessment practices have impacted communication education (Morreale, 2020), concerns about the validity of our assessment measures leave the discipline open to further harm. Close examination of the discipline ’ s assessment measures demonstrates that construct validity continues to slip our grasp, and when this slippage is discovered, individuals and institutions will be held accountable. De fi ning, teaching, and measuring communication e ff ectiveness is a value that society expects from the discipline. To ensure the health of our discipline, we must rede fi ne what e ff ective communication is and how we can assess it within increasingly diverse contexts. The discipline was formed because it brought something unique to higher education, particularly oral communication training