Communication Evaluations

For this week, we were to evaluate how we communicate and how people we interact with evaluate us. I decided to choose my husband and a friend. After the evaluation, the listening styles profile was the only one we all shared the same results. For my communication anxiety inventory my friend and I had the same result which was that I fell into the ‘low category’, which means I feel comfortable communicating in most situations and feel confident in anticipating such encounters’ while my husband’s result I fell into the ‘mild category’ which indicate that I might feel a bit uneasy in some communication situations and somewhat more confident in other contexts. Communication does not seem to be something that worry a great deal about .I guess my husband’s result or evaluation could be based on his view that I sometimes get intimidated by authority figure when communicating in such context  which to certain extent I  could agree with him

The second evaluation result which evaluates verbal aggressiveness; my husband and my result were similar while my friend was different. My husband and my evaluations gave me a ‘moderate scale’ as result which indicates that I maintain a good balance between respect and consideration for others viewpoints, and the ability to argue fairly by attacking the facts rather than the person holding that position. I believe this really resonates with me, unlike my friend’s result which falls into the ‘significant scale’ which indicates with little provocation I might cross the line from “argumentativeness’ which attacks a person’s position or statements and verbal aggression; which involves personal attacks and can be hurtful to the listener. This I do not agree with because I believe I have always being very cautious in getting into argument that  involve verbal abuses; I personally do not like to be a victim so I do not perpetrate it; it’s a principle I have upheld for years.

 For the third evaluation on my listening styles profile; the result came out the same for the three of us. i fell into the ‘group -1’ category which shows I am people- oriented .This category indicates that I am empathetic and concerned with the emotions of others .This listening styles helps me build relationship but it can interfere with proper judgment because I tend to be very trusting of others. I feel this most likely resonates with me in a large way because I trust and tend to think of the best about people; but sometimes I am surprised when people tend to be the opposites, even with such experiences, I still continue to give people the benefit of the doubt.

One thing that surprised me the most was the result from my friend on the verbal aggressiveness, which shows that with little provocation; I might exhibit verbal aggressive behaviors; I do not really agree with that because I find it very difficult to utters verbally aggressive words rather I usually avoid such situations by changing the topic or walking away from it.

The insight I gained from about communication from this evaluation is that to be effective in communication one needs to understand how one communicate with others and also take note of our others perceive us in order to fully understand if we are communicating appropriately with others. When we realize our lapses, our ability to make changes makes us better communicators.

As an early childhood educator, I therefore believe that I need to evaluate myself based on how I communicate with others and be committed to making adjustment. The impression others have about us plays an important role in developing our self concept; therefore evaluating our communication from time to time helps us maintain an appropriate balance when we communicating and interact with others.