A Study on Graduate School Entrance Interviews: A Dialectical Analysis

• Main Authors: Yin-ju Wu, 吳盈儒
• Other Authors: none
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/pxzep5

碩士 === 世新大學 === 口語傳播學研究所 === 96 === The purpose of this study is to examine whether graduate programs candidates in oral entrance examinations experience dialectical contradictions and how they manage them if they encounter contradictions. Twenty graduate programs candidates who admitted the graduate program in different school years are interviewed by the researcher via the semi-structured interview method. In addition to the transcribed in-depth interview data, this study also analyzes the transcripts of audio-taped entrance interviews between candidates and interviewers. Results show that candidates do experience dialectical contradictions and use various communication / praxis strategies to manage them as suggested by the relational dialectics literature. Specifically, the candidates whose undergraduate majors are similar to the graduate program tend to experience the connectedness-separateness contradiction more often than the candidates whose undergraduate majors are different from the graduate program. Furthermore, the candidates whose undergraduate majors are different from the graduate program always experienced the certainty-uncertainty contradiction. However, most candidates indicate that they experienced the openness-closeness contradiction during the oral entrance interviews. Results also suggest that the specific praxis strategies were chosen to manage dialectical contradictions according to the types of contradictions encountered by candidates.