Assessing Communication Competence

Assessing Communication Competence

Communication competence is the ability to relate to others with accuracy, clarity,
comprehensibility, coherence, expertise, effectiveness and appropriateness. It is a
measure of determining to what extent the goals of interaction are achieved. However,
communicative competence is contingent upon the context in which the interaction
takes place. Communication which is successful with one group in one situation may
not be perceived as competent with a different group in another situation.
 “The domain of communicative competence includes learning what the available means are, how they have been employed in various situations in the past, and being able to determine the ones that
have the highest probability of success in a given situation.

Canary and Cody (Interpersonal Communication) provide six criteria for assessing
competence. The criteria include - adaptability, conversational-involvement,
conversational-management, empathy, effectiveness, and appropriateness.

1. Adaptability: Adaptability is the ability to assess situations and when necessary
change behaviors and goals to meet the needs of interaction. It signals awareness of
the other person’s perspectives, interests, goals, and communication approach, plus
the willingness to modify ones own behaviors and goals to adapt to the interaction
situation. By mindfully tracking what is going on in the intercultural situation, both parties
may modify their nonverbal and verbal behavior to achieve a more synchronized
communication process. In modifying their behavioral styles, polarized views on the
problem may also be depolarized or “softened.” It consists of six factors:

1. Social experience - participation in various social interactions
2. Social composure - refers to keeping calm through accurate perception
3. Social confirmation - refers to acknowledgment of partner’s goals
4. Appropriate disclosure - being sensitive to amount and type of info
5. Articulation - ability to express ideas through language
6. Wit - ability to use humour in adapting to social situations; ease tensions

2. Conversational Involvement: Conversational interaction is a factor that
determines the degree to which individuals participate in conversation with others.
Specifically, receivers of communication differ in terms of their attentiveness and
perceptiveness. These parameters influence how information and cues are received
from others.

In a study involving 1000 self-assessment reports, Cegala D J (“Interaction involvement:
A cognitive dimension of communicative competence. Communication Education”)
found that approximately 48% of individuals are not generally highly involved in their
conversations. He describes perceptiveness as, “the ability to assign appropriate
meanings to others’ behavior as well as the ability to understand what meanings others
have assigned to one’s own behavior”. Attentiveness is cognizance of another’s
communicative behavior. Responsiveness is “a tendency to mentally react in a given
situation or circumstance and adapt by knowing what to say and when to say.”
Highly involved persons are predicted to be more issue-oriented and attentive to the
underlying message in the conversation. On the other hand, less involved persons are
expected to concentrate on events or surface of the conversation.

3. Conversational Management: Conversation-management is essentially the way
the communicators regulate their interactions. It is a matter of knowing the rules of
interpersonal communication exchanges and following them. Communication rules are
just like other socially conditioned behaviors and are acquired in the same way. What
are the rules that an astute and observant communicator knows about to manage
interaction?
Wiemann J (Explication and Test of a Model of Communicative Competence: Human
communication”) mentions the five most common communicative competencies:

1. First, one cannot interrupt the speaker.
2. Second, only one person may talk at a time.
3. Third, speakers’ turns must alternate or interchange.
4. Fourth, frequent or long pauses are inappropriate.
5. Fifth, both parties should be assured that the other is devoting his or her
undivided attention.

4. Empathy: Empathy, in its broadest usage, is considered a fundamental dimension
of interpersonal and communication competence. Empathy is the ability to demonstrate
understanding and sharing reactions in any given situation. It is an innate human capacity
that gives the ability to understand the unique experiences of another person.


• It connects people with one another on a meaningful and fulfilling level.
• It demonstrates a person’s caring attitude toward others
• It helps understand the people better.
• It usually leads conversation towards emotional issues.
• It lets one build a personal rapport with others
• It helps reduce ones irritation with others attitude or behaviour.
• It helps reduce ones prejudice or negative assumptions about others
• It fosters more meaningful, more helpful, closer friendships.

5. Effectiveness: Effectiveness refers to the degree to which communicators achieve
mutually shared meaning and integrative goal-related outcomes. Effective encoding
and decoding processes lead to mutually shared meanings. Mutually shared meanings
lead to perceived intercultural understanding. Interaction effectiveness has been
achieved when multiple meanings are attended to with accuracy and when mutually
desired interaction goals have been reached. Interaction ineffectiveness occurs when
content or relational meanings are mismatched and intercultural noises and clashes
jam the communication channels. Communication effectiveness can improve task
productivity.

6. Appropriateness: A fundamental criterion for determining communication
competence, appropriateness is the ability to uphold the expectations of a given
situation. Individuals typically use their own expectations and scripts to approach an
interaction scene. They also formulate their impressions of a competent communicator
on the basis of their perceptions of the other’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors in the
particular interaction setting. To understand whether appropriate communication has
been perceived, it is vital to obtain competence evaluations from the standpoint of
both communicators and interested observers. It is also critical to obtain both self perception
and other-perception data. Appropriate communication behaviors can be
assessed through understanding the underlying values, norms, social roles,
expectations, and scripts that govern the interaction episode.