This two-part study first examines the accuracy of participants’ self-perceptions of creativity and looks at the effects of positive or negative feedback on creativity capability or output. Results of online testing showed that participants with higher self-perceived creativity were ultimately more creative. In part two, participants were provided positive, negative or neutral feedback regarding their first creativity exercises and retested using the same creativity measures. An ANOVA demonstrated no difference in the change in creative output from pre-test to post-test evaluations based on the type of randomly generated feedback message. While not significant, trends are highlighted in the data that warrant further examination in future research. Implications of the findings for instructors are discussed.

This article draws on existing communication research and praxes to share the best practices for retaining students enrolled in the introductory public speaking course. Among the many important pedagogical practices that communication scholars have documented, this article highlights the value of 10 best practices: instructor use of immediacy and confirmation; instructor inclusion of written prescriptive feedback, peer feedback workshops, low-stakes assignments, applied assignments, and individual speech preparation tools; and instructor participation in out-of-class communication, online office hours, and classroom-connectedness.Coined as the discipline's "front porch" (Beebe, 2013, p. 3), the public speaking course provides a gateway for students to the communication major. It often is the first communication course a student takes, it can act either as a recruitment tool or as a deterent in choosing or continuing with the major, and it can play an integral role in college retention because students often reap benefits from the public speaking course (e.g., reduced communication apprehension, increased self-efficacy) that enable their success in other courses and, thereby, encourages their persistence across the entire college or university (Mahmud, 2014). Therefore, a fundamental goal of institutions should be to enroll and retain students in the public speaking course. To assist in attaining this goal, this article identifies 10 best practices for facilating student persistence in the public speaking course.

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