Communication Skills Assessment

Communication skills assessment

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Communication Skills Assessment

Introduction

Communication is an essential requirement in our daily life. We need to communicate on a regular basis in order to convey our ideas and messages to the other end. It may be to the people or to some machine. Most of the times, we pass on our words and ideas to people. It can be to a single person, a group of people, or a large number of people in the form of a gathering. In order to make the message more meaningful and direct, a communicator needs to have very good communication skills. Without the presence of excellent skills related to communication, the message may lose its actual meaning and even prove to be useless.

Discussion

I have practiced communication skills in many places, and I consider myself to be a good communicator. In my view, I do not possess excellent communication skills, but I am not a bad communicator either. I have faced many tough situations in life where the problem was only arising due to the non-clarity of the message or a fault in the communication process. I was able to come out of such situations or resolve such issues very quickly through my fast thinking and effective communication methods.

I already knew that I am not an excellent nor a lousy communicator, but I wanted to be sure. I always get satisfied by the number or figures and always insist on getting my results or performance in the numerical or percentage form so that I can have an exact idea. That is why I decided to take an online assessment, in order to find the precise percentage of how good are my communication skills. The assessment was available on the website of Mindtools.com, and it hardly took me three to four minutes to complete the test. It was based on short but comprehensive multiple-choice questions that inquired about my communication strategies and preferences in various ways.

I took the test, and the result was more than my expectations. The website rated my communication skills at 49 out of 100. It also gave a description of the results in the following statement “You're a capable communicator, but you sometimes experience communication problems. Take the time to think about your approach to communication, and focus on receiving messages effectively, as much as sending them. This will help to improve your ability to communicate.”

I was a little surprised to see this result as I never considered myself such a good communicator. I thought that my results would be in a line of 30s, but that was not the case. The additional comments with the results also made me aware of my shortcomings in the communication area and gave me tips to overcome those shortcomings. I came to know through the results that I need to focus a little more on my communication strategies. I got to know that I am facing issues regarding clearing the actual intention or the intended message being communicated. The website guided me to further description which also opened many doors of enlightenment for me. It guided me through the communication process and advised me to focus more on listening, instead of speaking. It will help me enhance my communication skills in a better way, and I can communicate better in both my academic and professional life.

Conclusions

Shortly, the test or assessment has proved to be a guiding light for me to give me know-how of my flaws in the communication process and how to improve them. I am planning to start working immediately on tips provided by the website against my results, in order to make myself a perfect communicator.

References

Ting-Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (2005). Understanding intercultural communication. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pesina, S., & Solonchak, T. (2014, June). The Sign in the Communication Process. In International Science Conference: International Conference on Language and Technology (June 19-20). World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. International Science Index (Vol. 8, No. 6 Part XI, pp. 1021-1029).

Barnlund, D. C. (2017). A transactional model of communication. In Communication theory (pp. 47-57). Routledge.