About the book

Interpersonal Communication: Context and Connection provides an engaging overview of interpersonal communication grounded in theory, research, and practical application, with an eye to the lived experience of college students. The first three chapters provide the foundation of interpersonal communication with an examination of the theoretical and conceptual background of communication, self, and perception. The next section of the book examines unique features of messaging, with an exploration of listening, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Chapters seven, eight, and nine explore dynamic factors that shape interpersonal relationships, including emotions, climate, and conflict. The final chapters of the book delve into communication in context through building and maintaining relationships, the dark side of communication, and workplace relationships.

Throughout the writing of this textbook, we kept our target audience in mind: first and second-year students at community colleges and universities. Using descriptions, examples, images, and activities that would connect with our students, we focused on fundamental concepts, theories, and models that addressed the student learning outcomes for achieving knowledge and skills in interpersonal communication. This academic resource is available free of charge because we support the accessibility of educational materials for everyone. We encourage instructors to consider adopting this open educational resource as a comprehensive textbook for a course on interpersonal communication. We also suggest that instructors consider customizing their use of the text by incorporating chapters or sections of the resource into other courses as appropriate.

Interpersonal Communication: Context and Connection was written with several unique features in mind that make it an excellent resource for community college students.

• Interpersonal Communication C-ID: The book was written with the rigor and expectations tailored to C-ID for COMM 130, Interpersonal Communication. The C-ID number is a designation that ties that course to a specific course “descriptor” that was developed by intersegmental discipline faculty and reviewed statewide.
• Theoretical Framework: The book incorporates frameworks of traditional interpersonal communication theories with contemporary examples to promote student success.
• CC-BY License: The book has a Creative Commons license CC BY which is by far one of the most open licenses in the OER spectrum and allows users to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute.
• Libre-Texts Platform: With Libre-Texts as the platform for the book, materials can be adapted for face-to-face courses, or seamlessly integrated into course management systems such as Canvas.
• Universal Design: The design of the book adheres to the best practices of accessibility in universal design as recommended by the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges.
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: The writing of the book was guided by the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion, using voice, language, and examples to speak directly to students.
• Authors: The authors of this text include a collective of 15 diverse instructors from across California, from San Diego all the way up to Humboldt County.
• Chapter Enhancements include:
  • Each chapter begins with learning objectives that are based on C-ID standards and ends with a summary to link student learning back to the objectives.
  • Break-out boxes throughout the chapters include a focus on gender, culture, technology, and media in combination with activities and questions for student reflection.
  • Original images and activities developed by authors.
  • Each chapter includes a rich database of key concepts, vocabulary terms, and questions for discussion.
• Pandemic, Virtual Environments, and Communication: Every attempt was made to acknowledge how virtual environments and the pandemic have shaped interpersonal communication.

This project was a labor of LOVE on the part of the communication faculty who participated in the writing of this textbook. We came together as strangers and leave this project as friends. Influenced by popular OER writings in the discipline of interpersonal communication, the majority of this book is written in our own voices inspired by our teaching and personal, lived experiences. The acronym below spells out our labor of LOVE.

• L: Life-long learning Based on our love for and, for many of us, life-long learning and teaching in the field of communication studies, we wanted to share the significant concepts, theories, and models of interpersonal communication through engaging examples and narratives, clear definitions and discussions, and relevant reflective activities with learners of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences.
• O: Open education Because we advocate for and support open education for all, we created an open educational resource that would be accessible to all students as a free text. We also composed this text in such a way that instructors can select as much of the resource as they chose to use and adapt it as they see fit in order to best suit their students and the student learning objectives.
• V: Virtual learning Being committed to providing the best possible learning experiences for our students in their online, virtual learning environments, we ourselves worked on this collaborative project conducting our research, writing our chapters, and revising our text as we learned how to use new technologies to provide our students with the most relevant, up-to-date information on interpersonal communication accessible online.
• E: Equity Being mindful of the unfairness and injustice brought about by the pandemic and other societal issues, we answered the call to craft a text that was grounded in equity and supported student success in achieving a fundamental understanding of the theory and practices in effective interpersonal communication.

The authors of this book would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to the supporters of this project. This project would not have been possible without the support of a joint grant from the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges Open Educational Resources Initiative (ASCCC-OERI) and Libre-Texts. This project received financial support for this project and equally important extensive training in open education resources, licensing, accessibility, and Libre-Texts. We like to thank the OER authors who came before us, as well as organizations such as the Gottman Institute, for graciously sharing their valuable resources with this project. We would also like to thank Shagun Kaur - our Project Facilitator, and Hilary Altman, and Kim Yee-Jung - our two leads of this project. Their vision, patience, and amazing organizational skills help to facilitate this project through to its completion. Collectively, the authors would like to thank their families and loved ones for providing support and feedback throughout this process. Last, but not least, the authors would like to thank the wonderful students of the California Community College system, who collectively served as inspiration for this text.