Learning to Listen: Teaching an Active Listening Strategy to Preservice Education Professionals

Abstract

The importance of parent–teacher communication has been widely recognized; however, there is only limited research on teaching effective listening skills to education professionals. In this study, a pretest–posttest control group design was used to examine the effect of instruction on the active listening skills of preservice education professionals. Instruction resulted in statistically significant improvement for targeted active listening skills. As a measure of social validity, parents of preschool and school-age children viewed pre- and postinstruction videotapes of preservice education professionals in role-play conversations. The parents judged the postinstruction performances of the preservice education professionals to be better examples of effective communication than the preinstruction performances of the preservice education professionals.

Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS): Reliability and Validity in a Nationwide Sample of Greek Educators

“…Teachers' active listening skills have been researched mainly regarding communication with students [43,44] and students' parents [9,42]. However, there seems to be no relevant research regarding Greek educators.…”

“…Active listening in the person-centered approach is grounded in the basic attitudes of the user and means effective and not passive listening to the other person [7]. It has been described as a multi-step process, which includes techniques such as making comments, formulating appropriate questions, paraphrasing and summarizing, in order to express complete understanding and verify the things said [8,9]. It also includes maintaining eye contact, using encouraging non-verbal gestures such as nodding or smiling, and not interrupting the speaker [3,10].…”

“…"The goal in active listening is to develop a clear understanding of the speaker's concern and also to clearly communicate the listener's interest in the speaker's message" ( [9], p. 224). An active listener actually collaborates with the speaker and they co-construct shared meaning [11].…”

Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS): Reliability and Validity in a Nationwide Sample of Greek Educators

“…Within interpersonal relationships listening is rendered more successful when conducted actively and empathically (Bodie 2011a;Gearhart and Bodie 2011;Lewis and Reinsch 1998;Robertson 2005;Bodie et al 2012). Active listening was incepted in Carl Roger's humanistic theory (Rogers 1957) and has since been described as the development of a clear understanding of the speaker's concern followed by the clear communication of the listener's interest in the speaker's message (McNaughton et al 2008). It has also been described 2 of 13 as a process which includes techniques such as maintaining eye contact, not interrupting the speaker, making encouraging comments or non-verbal gestures, formulating appropriate questions, paraphrasing, and summarizing in order to show full understanding of the things said (Robertson 2005;McNaughton et al 2008;Gordon and Burch 2003;Weger et al 2010).…”

“…Active listening was incepted in Carl Roger's humanistic theory (Rogers 1957) and has since been described as the development of a clear understanding of the speaker's concern followed by the clear communication of the listener's interest in the speaker's message (McNaughton et al 2008). It has also been described 2 of 13 as a process which includes techniques such as maintaining eye contact, not interrupting the speaker, making encouraging comments or non-verbal gestures, formulating appropriate questions, paraphrasing, and summarizing in order to show full understanding of the things said (Robertson 2005;McNaughton et al 2008;Gordon and Burch 2003;Weger et al 2010). If practiced without empathy, though, and if used just as a set of techniques, it may seem empty and inauthentic (Rogers and Farson 1979).…”