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Comparative Study Regarding Communication Styles of The Students
Article in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences · May 2015
DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.066
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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208
5th World Conference on Learning, Teaching and Educational Leadership, WCLTA 2014
Comparative Study Regarding Communication Styles of The
Students
Georgeta Pânișoarăa, Cristina Sandua, Ion-Ovidiu Pânișoarăa, Nicoleta Duțăa*
a
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest, 90 Panduri Rd., Bucharest 050663, Romania
Abstract
The communication style is an indicator of a pattern of a person organises his interpersonal relationships. In fact, the style of
communication is a way which shows how the pupils see and judge the information around them. According to these, the
teachers, families can improve their interactions. The art of effective communication should not just stop at the correct use of
language, but also at other forms of communication. We have proposed to present a theoretical and practical approach about how
the gender of pupils influences communication, with the objective of preventing conflicting style. The method used is a
questionnaire of the Romanian psychologist Solomon Marcus. It includes four styles – aggressive, assertive, persuasive and
passive. The participants are 60 pupils, equal numbers of girls and boys, 12- 14 years old, from schools in Bucharest. We used
statistical t test to see the differences between boys and girls. We also wanted to see if preadolescents already have a pattern of
aggresivity or passiveness. The research findings coming according to recent studies, there is a need among students to create an
orientation towards interpersonal communication for success in the future and for the formation of human society. The teacher
must realize the importance of communication in their relationships with students and encourage the development of quality
communication skills to help children communicate better in the future. Communication skills are very important for the future
personality of the young person.
© 2015
© 2015TheTheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Publishedby by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center
Keywords: communication skills, aggressive style, passive style, professional success
1. Introduction
The importance of communication developed in a proper style at an early age must not longer be justified.
Teachers, parents, children themselves know that an adequate style of communication attracts a better understanding
between each other, but also professional success later in life.
* Nicoleta Duță. Tel: +4-564-345-343.
E-mail address: gpanisoara@yahoo.com, nico.duta1@gmail.com
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.066
Georgeta Pânişoară et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208 203
If communication skills are developed earlier in life, the young person learns to communicate in a way that
brings success to him earlier.
2. Communication styles – theoretical approaches
Communication style is defined as the set of speech characteristics of a person in the act of communication. Style
means specific ways of receiving the message, personal ways of interpreting the messages; specific ways of
expressing the response, feedback. Communication style is an indicator of how a person structures the world of
social relations.
Second communication style is an indicator of how to interpret the information and transform that information
into active behaviour in social judgments.
Also very important is “the combination of proper styles in context, not reducing to a single style” (Pânișoară,
2010).
Each person has a unique communication style, learned earlier or later in life.
There are a lot of classifications of the pattern or style. Anyway, every style has some features which it is better
to be developed. For example, in a study, Jackson (2014) reveals that participants considered “the effectiveness of
different learning activities for developing oral communication skills during their undergraduate studies.” (Jackson,
2014) So, we plead for an early education of very expressive communication.
A very important role of forming great communication skills is played by the parents.
As Cramaruc says “if the parents speak in an opened and efficient way, there are better chances to develop in
young person’s proper ideas and convictions” (Cramaruc, in Pânișoară, 2011).
One study of Runcan and Constantineanu clearly highlights the importance of communication between parents
and children, “this having a significant role in developing a qualitative interaction between them.
Communication is very important in the parent-child interaction, especially if the parents want to find a better
way to transmit to their children the important life values by which they could guide the present and especially the
future”. (Runcan, Constantineanu et al. 2012).
But to form a certain style of communication, assertive or supportive, it is very important that one or both parents
have such a style of communication. For example, “the tested prediction model of family satisfaction as a whole has
shown, that besides affective component of mothers and fathers upbringing style, regulatory dimension of mothers
and fathers upbringing style, that is, implementation and explanation of rules of behavior, evaluation and
consideration of consequences of the actions undertaken by children have also great significance.
Contribution of father`s warmth and regulation is more significant for being satisfied with a family, than mother`s
upbringing style”. (Todorovic, Matejevic, et al. 2012). So in this order the teachers and the parents have to realize
what are going to develop at future adults.
For a successful person it is important to develop positive communication with aspects of assertiveness,
negotiation etc.
Gulkekin says that ”educating the students as potential future negotiators starting in primary school will both
contribute to the concept of social communication significantly and help build the culture of consensus and living
together peacefully concept in social, personal and cultural communications” (Gulkekin, 2012).
Based on the literature and reviewing various studies about the profile university teaching staff, the qualities
expressed by the research participants were grouped into eight dimensions, among which we find the relational
competences - dialog with students, tutoring activities (Duță, Pânișoară, G. & Pânișoară I.O., 2014).
We started our research from the classification of psychologist Solomon Marcus (1987). There are four styles of
communication which we are going to investigate.
The aggressive style presents tendency to be always in front of everybody else, impose himself at any costs. This
attitude stimulates aggressiveness, hostility, antipathy.
The assertive style refers at self imposed attitude, but in an honest way, stimulating clearly his/her personal rights
without hurting the others; the capacity to follow your interests without hurting the others.
The persuasive style has as a main feature to play an underground role until a favorite climate for our objective is
put in valuable light.
The passive style is the one which has its main characteristic being non-active.
204 Georgeta Pânişoară et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208
García-Ramírez (2012) highlights the need for communicative interaction and especially empathetic listening in
order to achieve visible excellence in university teaching. The way in which a teacher communicates with his/her
students is important, and if he/she uses attractive ways to display information through interaction, the results will
be immediate (Duţă, 2010, 2012).
3. Organization of the research
3.1. The purpose of the research
The objective of the research is to identify the predominant communication style of students and potential
differences between girls and boys at preadolescence. Analysis and identification of dominant communication style
for students will enable a diagnosis for education, future amelioration and better management of career.
3.2. Hypothesis
There are differences between girls and boys on communication styles.
There is a predominant communication style of the preadolescents’ students.
3.3. Subjects
The participants are 60 pupils, equal numbers of girls and boys, 12-14 years old, studying in Bucharest. Subjects
were held a short training for correct completion of the questionnaire. Participants that completed the questionnaire
in this research were chosen by age and gender, with an average level of attainment.
3.4. Methods
The method used is a questionnaire of the Romanian psychologist Solomon Marcus. It includes four styles –
aggressive, assertive, persuasive and passive. The method of the questionnaire was answering questions with true or
false. Responses were rated as “1” for Truth and to “0” for False. Responses to the questionnaire indicate the
dominant attitude in communication, relatively stable and predictable characteristics of communicative behavior in
the school environment.
4. Results
The results obtained were introduced in SPSS software. We used statistical t test to see differences between boys
and girls. We also wanted to see if the preadolescents already have a pattern of aggressivity or passiveness.
The research findings coming according to recent studies, there is a need among students to create an orientation
towards interpersonal communication for success in the future and for the formation of human society.
The teacher must realize the importance of communication in their relationships with students and encourage the
development of quality communication skills to help children communicate better in the future.
Georgeta Pânişoară et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208 205
Fig. 1. Histogram Assertive style Fig. 2. Histogram Aggressive style
Fig. 3. Histogram Persuasive style Fig. 4. Histogram Passive style
The charts above are of histogram and show us the distribution of responses by gender. Thus, the dispersion of
responses is large, eg Figure 3, persuasive style, we can see the boys around the mean and in the case of girls, there
are answers to maximum.
In Figure no. 2, aggressive style, high responses can be observed for both categories of subjects – males and
females.
206 Georgeta Pânişoară et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics
gender N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
male 30 8,10 2,171 ,396
aggressive
female 30 8,07 1,911 ,349
male 30 12,07 2,067 ,377
assertive
female 30 10,47 2,161 ,395
male 30 8,53 2,030 ,371
persuasive
female 30 8,83 2,692 ,491
male 30 7,03 2,671 ,488
passive
female 30 8,53 2,193 ,400
In Table no. 1 presents descriptive statistics (sample volume, mean, standard deviation) for the four
communication styles: aggressive, assertive, passive and persuasive.
Thus, for example, assertive communication style, media responses boys is higher (m = 12.07) compared to the
average responses of girls (M = 10.47).
Table 2. Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for Equality of t-test for Equality of Means
Variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval
tailed) Difference Difference of the Difference
Lower Upper
Equal
variances 1,108 ,297 ,063 58 ,950 ,033 ,528 -1,024 1,090
assumed
aggressive
Equal
variances not ,063 57,078 ,950 ,033 ,528 -1,024 1,091
assumed
Equal
variances ,531 ,469 2,931 58 ,005 1,600 ,546 ,507 2,693
assumed
assertive
Equal
variances not 2,931 57,884 ,005 1,600 ,546 ,507 2,693
assumed
Equal
variances 4,961 ,030 -,487 58 ,628 -,300 ,616 -1,532 ,932
assumed
persuasive
Equal
variances not -,487 53,918 ,628 -,300 ,616 -1,534 ,934
assumed
Equal
variances 1,640 ,205 -2,377 58 ,021 -1,500 ,631 -2,763 -,237
assumed
passive
Equal
variances not -2,377 55,879 ,021 -1,500 ,631 -2,764 -,236
assumed
Georgeta Pânişoară et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 186 (2015) 202 – 208 207
To see the statistical differences between the two groups, we used different samples t test in SPSS programme.
As it can be seen, persuasive communication style, sig =, 030, which means that there are differences between girls
and boys for this style and I can say that girls have higher results therefore are more persuasive than boys.
4. Conclusions
Communication skills are very important for the future personality of a young person, for his quality in life and
for professional success.
The way in which they communicate is important for his future success and in society, so the teachers must do an
extra effort at early age of subjects to be learnt to communicate in a positive, assertive way.
As it is seen in our lot of students they learnt to use assertive style. Anyway we can predict how extended is this
way of action in general.
An important factor in the analysis of results is represented and background of the students, and they have
families with a low level of education and finance, this contributes to the forming of communicative aggressive
behavior in some of the students.
Anyway they learn how to behave in a controlled space like school, being assertive or persuasive in some of their
behaviors.
As Zhamilya et al. (2013) says, the “pedagogical communication is a specific form of communication with its
peculiar features and, at the same time, obeying general psychological interrelations, specific to communication as a
form of interaction between humans, including communicative, interactive and perceptive components”.
Communication is the key to controlling the interactions in the process of teaching and learning tool and the basis
for the social relationships of all the members that compose the university community.
According to Codina (2004), to develop the interpersonal communicative competence is vital to reach students
and the society in general. Coinciding with the famous phrase of Winston Churchill: “It takes courage to stand and
speak. But much more to sit and listen”.
Communication competence, as a system of knowledge, skills, abilities, motivational disposition, attitudes and
properties in teaching communication and social interaction, is the essential competence of teachers and students.
In conclusion, we consider important the need to promote communicative interaction and interpersonal
relationships between professors and students in order to improve the excellence visible in Higher Education.
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