Active Listening and Assertive Communication Style in LSP

Teaching

Ksenija JURETIĆ and Kristina KAŠTELAN

University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics, Rijeka, Croatia

Active Listening and Assertive Communication Style…

• Multitasking

• Noisy Communication Channels & Continuous Partial Attention (CPA)

• Four Communication Styles

• Active Listening and Assertiveness

• Research Results

• Conclusion

Multitasking vs. Continuous Partial

Attention (CPA) • In computing, multitasking is a method where

multiple tasks are performed during the same period of time. (Multimedia - a classic example of

multitasking that converges images, video, and sound)

• Simple multitasking

• Complex Multitasking- CPA (Linda Stone, 1997)

Continuous Partial Attention (CPA)

• Complex multitasking: People are hyper alert with the

pace 24/7, anywhere, anytime, anyplace struggling with their workload asking their brains to attend to 4 I.M. conversations, a partially completed paper, a news website, a text message coming in on the cell phone and a conversation with the person sitting next to them using CPA as their primary attention strategy( Linda Stone, 1997, 2010)

• Complex multitasking = CPA ( e-mail / screen apnea) compromised breathing +compromised attention

Digital immigrants vs. Digital natives

• Digital immigrants (prior to 1990s) - personal computing technologies ( focus on productivity and personal

creativity ; a value on self-expression, output and efficiency)

• Digital natives - the personal communications technology era ( focus is on the amplified accessibility and

responsiveness): combine ‘old media’ such as TV and music with ‘new media’ such as computers, smart phones, and continually increase sources of input - they go online while watching TV, talk on the phone, listen to music, surf the Web, use

Facebook/ Twitter while text-messaging and studying.

Noisy Communication Channels Digital Immigrants are faced with

• Environmental Noise (physically disrupts communication:

standing next to loud speakers, works at a construction site making it difficult to hear the speaker)

• Semantic Noise (misinterpretation of the meanings of certain words

taken out of the context)

• Syntactical Noise (mistakes in grammar)

• Cultural Noise (stereotypical assumptions )

• Organisational Noise (poorly structured messages )

• Psychological Noise ( anger, sadness or anxiety that may cause

someone to lose focus on the message itself)

The Noisy Communication Channels Digital

Natives are faced with:

• Continuous Partial Attention

• The consequences are apart from stress-related diseases (compromised breathing and compromised attention), continuous distractions that can cause anxiety, lack of active listening and non-assertive communication.

• Hypothesis as a starting point:

• The paradox is the louder the environmental, semantic, cultural and psychological noise in communication channels, the louder the “sound of silence”.

• And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence.

• ( Simon &Garfunkel lyrics, 1964)

Communication Styles

Passive

Passive-aggressive

Aggressive

• passive communicators (whose ‘voices never share’) do not defend their personal boundaries

• ‘’individuals appear passive on the surface but are really acting out anger in a subtle, indirect, or behind-the-scenes way

• does not respect the personal boundaries of others and thus often harms others while trying to influence them , often being verbally and/or physically abusive (‘and no one dare disturb the sounds of silence’).

Active Listening and Assertive Communication Style

Active Listening

total and undivided attention interest

and concern

listen not only with our ears, but with our eyes,

mind, heart and

imagination

to absorb everything the

speaker is saying verbally

and nonverbally

without adding,

subtracting, or amending.” (Carl Rogers,

1980)

Assertiveness

a person could not be both

assertive and anxious at the

same time, and thus being

assertive would inhibit

anxiety

(Joseph Wolpe, 1958)

Assertive communicators have high self-esteem, while

being very respectful of the rights of others.

'I count my needs. I count

your needs' position"

5 As + S IN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

• PAY ATTENTION

ATTENTION

• APPRECIATE DIFFERENCES

APPRECIATION • LISTEN

VERBALLY AND NON VERBALLY

ACTIVE LISTENING

• YES AND NO IN THE SAME POLITE WAY

ASSERTIVENESS

• FOR AND AGAINST ARGUMENTS

ARGUMENTATION • In harmony

with onself and others

SUCCESS

Research Sample and Methods

experimental group (50)- third year students

control group (60) – first year students

• The test consists of two parts: • The first part – a reflective listening skills test with 10

questions offering two possible response alternatives • The second comprised of 28 particles on

multitasking, active listening skills and CPA which were evaluated on the 5- likert scale. The data of the survey was analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, specifically the t-test analysis.

Figure 1: Percentage of students according to the total achieved value class

Class 1st year 3rd year

15-20 17,39% 26,32%

10-15 63,77% 57,89%

5-10 14,49% 15,79%

0-5 4,35% 0,00%

• The t-tests analyze the degree of respondent’s active listening skills according to individual particles in the questionnaire based on the respondent’s belief (see Tables in Appendix 2)

• Even though, while observing the total mean for all particles there is a slight difference in the average mean of the control and experimental group (3. 36 and 3.55 respectively), the statistical analysis proves several statistically significant differences between first and third year students regarding their behaviour while listening to the speaker.

• The third year students had better results in active listening as they:

• more commonly make eye contact nod their heads in agreement while listening to the speaker.

• more frequently give their full attention to the speaker and the speaker’s body language

• have more patience in waiting for the speaker to finish before making mental judgments and are not prone to interrupting a serious discussion in order to make a personal call

• For more detailed statistical analysis data, see tables in Appendix 2.

• the descriptive statistical t-test analysis according to gender showed no statistically significant differences for the first year students and only two significant differences among the third year results.

• The third year female students more frequently find themselves thinking about what they are going to say whereas the male students pay closer attention to the speaker’s body language when listening to the speaker

Mean 3rd Mean 1st t-value df p Valid N Valid N Std.Dev. Std.Dev. F-ratio

1 3.953488 3.550725 1.96056 110 0.052459 43 69 1.090074 1.036627 1.105776

2 3.604651 3.666667 -0.28962 110 0.772655 43 69 0.979298 1.171558 1.431191

3 3.372093 3.246377 0.61730 110 0.538310 43 69 0.900351 1.129885 1.574873

4 4.116279 3.579710 2.26710 110 0.025339 43 69 1.051287 1.310655 1.554298

5 4.023256 3.391304 2.82898 110 0.005551 43 69 1.123099 1.165905 1.077682

6 3.418605 3.086957 1.90907 110 0.058858 43 69 0.879192 0.903248 1.055471

7 2.813953 3.188406 -1.86825 110 0.064389 43 69 1.006072 1.047060 1.083140

8 3.372093 3.579710 -1.01113 110 0.314173 43 69 0.951772 1.116794 1.376831

9 3.837209 3.231884 2.61495 110 0.010175 43 69 1.044948 1.273542 1.485380

10 3.883721 3.507246 1.56022 110 0.121581 43 69 1.117167 1.313092 1.381511

11 3.186047 3.231884 -0.22702 110 0.820833 43 69 1.139252 0.972337 1.372797

12 3.000000 3.115942 -0.55522 110 0.579875 43 69 0.899735 1.169920 1.690763

13 3.511628 3.304348 0.97630 110 0.331057 43 69 1.054968 1.115458 1.117964

14 4.139535 3.797101 1.49775 110 0.137061 43 69 0.940653 1.301353 1.913954

15 3.279070 3.246377 0.18063 110 0.856993 43 69 0.983811 0.897804 1.200771

16 3.860465 3.246377 3.05199 110 0.002850 43 69 0.888589 1.116794 1.579591

17 3.441860 3.579710 -0.62137 110 0.535640 43 69 1.097667 1.168279 1.132797

18 3.441860 3.434783 0.03868 110 0.969214 43 69 0.958727 0.931132 1.060150

19 3.395349 3.289855 0.57384 110 0.567244 43 69 0.694863 1.072400 2.381854

20 3.837209 3.478261 1.64304 110 0.103229 43 69 1.044948 1.170830 1.255448

21 3.930233 3.478261 2.00546 110 0.047369 43 69 1.032688 1.232032 1.423329

22 3.906977 3.565217 1.63975 110 0.103915 43 69 0.995560 1.117748 1.260528

23 3.162791 3.173913 -0.05731 110 0.954406 43 69 0.998337 0.999360 1.002050

24 2.883721 2.985507 -0.46537 110 0.642587 43 69 1.117167 1.131017 1.024948

25 3.953488 3.565217 1.90649 110 0.059196 43 69 0.998892 1.077555 1.163703

26 3.325581 3.275362 0.23488 110 0.814738 43 69 1.128018 1.083079 1.084706

27 3.116279 3.333333 -1.10838 110 0.270117 43 69 1.117167 0.934103 1.430363

28 3.813953 3.043478 3.68512 110 0.000356 43 69 1.006072 1.117176 1.233061