Communication Assessments

This week I completed three self-assessments for communication skills and had two other people complete them in asessment of me. One thing that really surprised me is that one of the poeple I had evaluate me had a much lower score than both my husband and I on the communication anxiety inventory. I had previously thought that everyone could read that I had some level of anxiety during my interactions with them, but apparently this person does not pick up on it. He is a father of one of the children in my classroom whom I also babysit. Upon thinking more about it, I realized that when I engage in communication with him, I am in a specific relational context.  I have known this father for almost two years, and so we have a very good rapport and have engaged in some conflict-resolution with one another with ease. This relational context also seems to influence his perception of my character. After all, our personal schemas and prior experiences affect how we expect others to behave (O'Hair, Weimann, Mullen, & Teven, 2015). The other person who filled out my assessments was my husband, and his anxiety score was comparable to the one I reieved during my own assessment of communication anxiety. I think this is because he sees me in other contexts than home and work. On the other hand, the father that I had fill out my assessment only sees me at work and in his home during professional interactions. What this tells me is that I am somewhat competent in professional communication because my anxiety is not apparent to those with whom I am working. Competent communication in the context of the workplace is critical for early childhood educators and I am pleased that this father does not read a lot of anxiety in our interpersonal communications.
One thing that did not surprise me during this exercise was finding that I was scored as "people oriented" by this father and myself. I know that I have deep concern for the feelings of others and I regard this trait as a professional asset. I am always seeking to serve, support, and empower the families of children in my classsroom and also my colleagues, and so their feelings and my empathy support me in this task. I was also not surprised that my husband scored me as content-focused because we typically do not engage in a lot of discussion about feelings but rather demonstrate concern for one another in different ways.
Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.