The Role of Students’ Personality Characteristics, Self-Perceived Competence and Learning Conceptions in the Acquisition and Development of Social Communicative Competence: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

An important purpose of higher social work education is to guide students to acquire and develop social-communicative competencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role students' personality characteristics, self-perceived communicative competence and learning conceptions play in the acquisition and development of social-communicative competencies. We designed and tested a hypothetical model on the student-related variables -self-perceived communicative competence, learning conceptions and reported learning activities regarding communication -in relation to performance scores. We were interested in developmental trends in the above mentioned variables. We also wanted to gain insight into the relationships among the variables. The study was set up according to a longitudinal, within-subjects design in order to study intra-individual changes. One-hundred and twenty-three first-year social-work students participated in this study. Many changes were found in students characteristics, reported deployed learning activities and study results during their first academic year. Except for confidence in ''showing sympathy'', which was already relatively high at the beginning of the study, all scores on aspects of students' self-perceived social-communicative competence increased. Assessment scores on comparable communication tests also increased significantly. Extraversion and emotional stability were the only two personality characteristics, which seemed rather stable. Agreeableness decreased while autonomy increased continuously during the first academic year. It seemed to be possible to set up a model, which may serve as a starting point for further research into the development of social-communicative competence.

The impact of goal orientation, self-reflection and personal characteristics on the acquisition of oral presentation skills

“…Cronbach's alpha scores for the other subscales are comparable to those reported by Bakx et al (2003Bakx et al ( , 2006 and reflect high reliability.…”

“…Since learning conceptions are to a certain degree context-dependent, it is relevant to take the knowledge domain into account when studying learning conceptions (Bakx, Van der Sanden, Sijtsma, Croon & Vermetten, 2006;Eklund, 1998;Vermunt & Vermetten, 2004). Pintrich (2003) has emphasized the central role of motivation when investigating learning and teaching.…”

“…The PALS was translated into Dutch following the parallel blind technique (Behling & Law, 2000). Bakx et al(2003Bakx et al( , 2006 constructed and validated a scale to measure the learning conceptions of social work students in the communication knowledge domain. This questionnaire was adapted to the context of oral presentations.…”

The Flipped Classroom for Teaching Millennials: A Competency-Based Pedagogical Approach

“…Such beliefs can have a significant impact upon the way we think and learn (Hofer, 2002;Bakx, VanDer Sanden, Sijtsma, Croon, & Vermetten, 2006). Hofer and Pintrich (1997) suggested that the nature of knowledge has two dimensions, i.e., the certainty of knowledge, and the simplicity of knowledge.…”

The Correlates of Turkish Preschool Preservice Teachers’ Social Competence, Empathy and Communication Skills

“…Social skills are defined as the ability to behave in accordance with the requirements of the social context in which the interpersonal relationship occurs (Alber, Heward, 1996;Bakx et al, 2006). The components of social skills are: social competence, being flexible within a context, being target-oriented, and possessing intra-and inter-personal characteristics (Bakx et al, 2006;Schlundt & McFall, 1985). Social competence, empathy, and communication skills are part of the social development of preservice teachers (Ergül et al, 2013;Zwaans, ten Dama, &Volman, 2006).…”