Communication Skills and Its Effects on Academic Performance, Case of Some Selected Schools in Yde Vii Municipality.
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
Below are the purposes of the study:
- The study will determine and describe the relationship between teachers’ communication skills and the academic performance of students.
- It will also determine whether there is significant difference in the mean perception ofmale and female teachers on the determinant of teachers’communication skills, sources of noise in the classroom setting and how the effect of noise can be mitigated on the integrity of message.
- Finally useful recommendations will bemade based on the results of the study.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theoretical framework
Teaching and learning is about interaction between students and educators, at the same place and the same time or asynchronous if time and place does not matter any more. A conversational framework (Muller, 2006) is a way of capturing the essentially iterative, communication and goal-oriented actions with feedback that are necessary to complete the learning process. The learning process operates on the two levels of discussion of theory and experienced practice, linked by processes of adaptation and reflection Muller explained that at the centre of teaching and learning is communication which enhances the process of conveying teachers concept to the student and receiving feedback goals from students. The role of communication in teaching and learning is therefore a vital one.
The Concept of Communication
Communication involves the encoding and decoding of messages by sender and receiver. It is the process through which, concepts, ideas and messages are transmitted from one point to another and feed back received. McBride et al (1981; 1999) states that communication should perform three functions namely, increase understanding, enhance a spirit of solidarity and to improve the capacity of men and women. In line with this communication therefore, goes beyond making information available to people but also building understanding between and among participants who must follow a process.
Communication process.
The entire communication process involves a sender who transmits a message and a receiver who usually reacts. At times there are interferences between transmission reception and all these take place within an environment.
Pat and Tyler (2008) explored the phases of communication. He explained that the first stage in the process of communication is the decision made by the sender to communicate fast. Sometimes one is unconscious for instance when pricked by pain, it could be as a result of careful thinking or some external stimulus. This idea will make little or no sense to any one even the sender himself.
According to Pat and Tyler (2008), the second stage is encoding, that is after a message has been conceived, and it can only make meaning to the receiver if it is formulated or put in the language that is understandable to him. Encoding simply means; putting a message or ideas in a manner that is understandable by the other party. In encoding, the appropriateness of the language used will in no small ways ensure the success of the message being sent.
The third stage is the selecting of the communication medium. After the message has been properly encoded, the sender is left with the responsibility of selecting most appropriate medium of communication (Pat and Tyler, 2008).
The fourth stage is the decoding of the message. Decoding means translating a message into an understandable language or form when a message is received, it is made by components. The process of assimilating the entire component is what encoding is all about (Pat and Tyler, 2008).
Several factors could lead to a receiver’s inability to understand a message effectively. These include such factors as difficulty in the language used by the sender, differences in educational background, cultural, religion, political outlook of the sender and the receiver, which tend to bridge understanding.
The fifth stage is interpreting the message. After decoding the message, that is, understanding it, the sender will have to read between lines to get the hidden meaning. A number of factors could lead to misinterpretation of a message and care must be taken by both sender and receiver not to have the message misinterpreted.
The sixth stage is providing feed-back. This is the most important stage in the entire communication process. This is because, it determine whether the message has been effective or not and that desired action has taken place. Feedback, which is the response of the receiver to the message, could be positive or negative. It is positive when the desired outcome is attained and negative when there is evidence that has neither been nor understood.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Research Design
A descriptive survey designwas adopted for the study to evaluate perception of teachers and students on the effect of teachers’ communcation skills on teaching and learning in schools. Redmond (2007) described descriptive study as that, which uses surveys and experimentation to express Real-life situation.
Population
The population consisted of all secondary school students and teachers in yde vii municipality.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Presentation of Data
Presentation of Demographic Information
The table 1 below shows that 51.6 percent of the respondentst are male while the remaining 48.4 percent are female. The table also revealed that 32.4percent of the respondents fall below 15 years of age, 28.0percent fall between 13-18 years of age; 22.0percent are between 19-35 years of age and 17.6 percent of are between 35 and 55 years. By qualification, 68.0 percent of the respondents are students 6.8 percent have NCE, 12.4 percent, have HND 12.8percent have B.Sc. Finally the table revelaed that 21.2 percent are SS 1 students, 29.6 percent in SS 2 and 17.2 percent are in SS 3 while5.2percent are teachers who have 0-5 years experience, 6.4percent have 6-15 years experience; 12.0percent have above 11 – 15 years of experience and 8.4 percent teachers have above 15 years of experience.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMENDATIONS
SUMMARY
The study investigated the perception of teachers and students on the relationship between teachers communicationn skills and students’ performance. It adopted a descriptive design and adminstered 250 questionnaires on 80 teachers and 170 students. The information collected were anlysed using descriptive statistivs and hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels of significance using the chi square and the t-test staitistical tools.
The study found out that Hereditory, Mannerisms, Accents and Purpose of information are important determinants of a teachers communicationn skills.
Noise in the classroom could emanate from Students arguement, Teachers method, Management Style, Internal Disturbance. It was also found out that Teachers Method, Management Style, Class Control by teacher and Concentration on the lesson could help minimise noise in the classroom.
The study also found out that Communicationn Skill of teachers influence clarity of lesson, students rapport with subject matter, enhances student presentation skill and it enhances student performance in examinations.
It found that: There is significant relationship between teachers’ communicationn skills and students ‘academic performance; There is no significant difference in the mean perception of male and female respondents on the determinants of teachers’ communicationn skills; There is no significant difference in the perception of rural and urban school respondents on thesources of noise in the classroom setting; There is no significant difference in the perception of students and teachers on how to control theeffect of noise on the intergrity of information in the classroom setting.
Conclusion
The study found that teachers communicationn skill is a function of many factors which include heredity,Mannerisms, Accents and Purpose of, training, exposure and many other factors; and that noise is inevitable in a classroom setting which sometimes distort communicationn if not well managed. Therefore it was concluded that communiocation of sklls of teacher demonstrated in his teaching Method, class management style, class Control mehtod adopted by teacher and and ability to make student concentrate on the lesson could help aid learning, clarity of thought, improve students presentation skills and ultimately the performance of the student s in examination.
Recommendations
Given the findings of this study, the researcher proposed the following as means of enhancing communicationn in the school:
- Governemnt to organise capacity building for teachers in areas of communicationn
- Teachers to try to overcome herditory imposed limitations often expressed in their accents, and pronounciation which may hide the meaning of the words they are trying to pronounce.
- Teachers should adopt a student friendly so as to keep the student focused on the content of discussion in the class.
- School Management should provide teaching aids and public address system to make communicationn easier for teachers.
- Parents should assist students in training themeselves to concentrate in the class.
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