Friday, August 29, 2008

that's HCom for "mumbo jumbo"

Every semester I expect to learn something worthwhile from my HCom classes.

And every semester I find myself disappointed.

I came all the way to campus today to read some chapters about leadership on reserve in the library, and ran into this:
After synthesizing the data of independent studies into homogenous groups using structural-equation modeling, Antonakis (2001) confirmed the validity of the nine factors comprising the FRLT. This procedure, referred to as a multisample analysis (see Joreskog, 1971), can be used to determine whether parameter estimates are invariant within samples. Within each homogenous group, the covariances between the factors, and the loadings of the latent and residual variables on the manifest variables, were set to equality. This procedure is referred to as strict factorial invariance (Byrne, 1994) and provides the most conservative estimates for a model's invariance across data sets.
I'm becoming convinced that the HCom researchers are people who know that their actual conclusions are things like "what is required of a good leader depends on the situation," but who continue to disguise these conclusions with big big words and complicated statistics so that rich people will be impressed by their very thick reports and give them grant money.

Considered another way, I think that I could get a scholarship by waxing eloquent about my forays into "Human Communications Studies, with an Emphasis in Speech Communication."

I would not be able to get a scholarship for "Talking."

1 comment:

Jack said...

[Message from: Academia]
Congratulations on your confirmed status as "disaffected member of the academic underclass."
In order to advance to "disaffected member of the academic overclass," please submit a transcript for seven years' graduate study in a program that meets DOE/CHEA standards for anarcho-syndicalism and supervisor apathy.
Should you wish to leave the academy at any time, you are free to do so... but remember that quitting means you're not smart enough.(tm)
[message end]