Effect of Communication Style and Personality on Communication Effectiveness :A Comparative Study of Faculty of Technical and Non -Technical Institutions.

Abstract

Effect of Communication Style and Personality on Communication Effectiveness: A Comparative Study of Faculty of Technical and Non-Technical Institutions

The excellence of educational institutions can be developed and improved by the teachers' consistent and effective communication with the students. Personality traits and communication styles play a critical role in teachers' communication effectiveness during classroom interactions, further enhancing students' learning and academic satisfaction. The current research attempts to explore the relationship between teachers' personality and communication style and the impact of their personality traits on their communication effectiveness while teaching in classrooms and determine the mediating role of communication style. Explicitly, it is an endeavour to explore the best predictors among diverse components of communication style and personality traits that lead to enhanced communication effectiveness. The study also analyses the differences in communication effectiveness between the faculty of technical and non-technical institutions. Finally, the effects of gender, age, and tenure on the communication effectiveness of the faculty are also examined. Three instruments were administered to six hundred faculty members teaching in technical and non-technical institutions in the northern region of India, the HEXACO-PI-R model of personality (Ashton et al., 2004; Ashton & Lee, 2008), an adapted version of the Communication Styles Inventory (CSI) by De Vries et al. (2013) and communication effectiveness instrument developed by Loy (2006). After the completion of data collection, the data was analysed using SPSS version 22.0 and Smart PLS version 3.2.0. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the responses gathered from self-reporting questionnaires.

The personality traits of faculty significantly influenced their communication effectiveness during their classroom interaction with the students, and there is a total mediating impact of their communication style on the relationship between their personality traits and communication effectiveness. The study identified "conscientiousness" and "extraversion" as significant predictors resulting in enhanced communication effectiveness of teachers through their 'expressive' and 'precise' styles leading to pedagogical efficiency and communication effectiveness. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient indicated a significant positive correlation between personality traits and communication styles of faculty from technical and non-technical institutions. CSI ‘expressiveness’ correlated most strongly with HEXACO

‘extraversion’ and HEXACO ‘consciousness.’ A substantial correlation between HEXACO ‘agreeableness’ and CSI ‘impression manipulativeness,’ was also reported. CSI ‘verbal aggressiveness’ correlated very strongly (negatively) with HEXACO ‘questioningness’; nonetheless, a weak relationship was identified between CSI ‘emotionality’ and HEXACO ‘emotionality’.

No significant difference was reported in the communication effectiveness of faculty from technical and non-technical institutions. However, faculty from technical and non-technical institutions differed only in one sub-variable of communication effectiveness; ‘assertiveness.’ The faculty from non-technical institutions was more assertive than faculty from technical institutions. The results indicated existence of gender differences in communication effectiveness. For subscales of communication effectiveness, ‘listening’ and ‘ability to get the message across,’ females scored higher than males. However, for the subscale ‘assertiveness,’ male faculty scored higher than female faculty. The age and tenure of teaching faculty also influenced their communication effectiveness while interacting with the students in the classrooms. For the subscales of communication effectiveness, the results showed that based on age and tenure of faculty differed particularly in their ‘ability to get the message across’, ‘insight into the communication process’, and ‘assertiveness.’ Differences were also identified for several pairs of means based on the results of Tukey HSD. The results of the current study will facilitate faculty to self-assess and enhance their communication effectiveness. Classroom environment and students' learning are influenced by teachers' communication styles and personality traits; thus, they should be incorporated when conceptualising the effectiveness of teachers and schools. The relationship established among teachers' personality traits, communication style, and communication effectiveness will give a unique direction to their performance. It will amplify students' class participation, academic performance, and social skills. Promoting interpersonal relationships and effective communicative interactions between instructors and students is imperative, as this will lead to excellence in educational institutions.