Monge, P. R., et al. (nd). Communicator competence in the workplace: Model testing and scale development. Communication Yearbook 5.
Comments: The 12-item Communicator Competence Questionnaire (CCQ) was developed to measure communication competence in either supervisors or subordinates. Supervisors are asked to evaluate their subordinates and subordinates evaluate the supervisor.
Scale Construction: Items were developed to represent encoding and decoding skills appropriate for the workplace. Seven encoding items focus on specific behaviors such as being able to express one’s ides clearly, having a good command of the language, and being easy to understand. Five decoding items focus on skills such as listening, responding to messages quickly, and attentiveness.
Sample: Samples were taken from two large firms in the same industry in the Midwest. One sample consisted of 220 respondents—supervisor-subordinate dyads. The second sample consisted of 60 staff people of manufacturing firm.
Validity: Convergent validity was assessed by correlating the competence scores on each factor with two global measures of competence. This analysis was conducted for both the supervisor and the subordinate data. The correlation between these measures was 0.74 offering reasonably good evidence for the convergent validity of the scales.
Factor Analysis: An oblique confirmatory factor analysis produced two factors—an encoding factor and a decoding factor. The two factors are free to covary and are significantly correlated.
References
Level, D. A., and Johnson, L. (1978). Accuracy of information flows within the supervisor/subordinate relationship. Journal of Business Communication 15:13–22.
Ray, S. R. (2010). Collegiate athletes’ perceptions of coaches’ communication competence. MA thesis, University of Wyoming.
Truncale, J. (2011). Interpersonal skills of highly successful business owners in the graphic communications industry. PhD dissertation, New York University.
Wiemann, J. M. (1977). Explication and test of a model of communicative competence. Human Communication Research 3:195–213.
Communication Competence Questionnaire
1. My subordinate has a good command of the language.
2. My subordinate is sensitive to others’ needs of the moment.
3. My subordinate typically gets right to the point.
4. My subordinate pays attention to what other people say to him or her.
5. My subordinate can deal with others effectively.
6. My subordinate is a good listener.
7. My subordinate’s writing is difficult to understand.
8. My subordinate expresses his or her ideas clearly.
9. My subordinate is difficult to understand when he or she speaks.
10. My subordinate generally says the right thing at the right time.
11. My subordinate is easy to talk to.
12. My subordinate usually responds to messages (memos, phone calls, reports, etc.) quickly.
Scoring: YES! = very strong agreement; YES = strong agreement; yes = mild agreement; ? = neutral feelings of the language; NO! = very strong disagreement; NO = strong disagreement; no = mild disagreement.