Communication Evaluations

As I was going through the three communication evaluations for myself and then had another person do the same evaluations based on their perception of my communication, public speaking, verbal aggression, and listening skills, I wasn't truly sure how the results would compare based on my learning experiences over the past few weeks and knowing that image can speak a different language then what we may assume we portray. All three scores for all three questionnaires were in the same category - for the Communication Anxiety I am considered Elevated, for the Verbal Aggression I am considered moderate and well balance, and for Listening I am considered to be people-oriented. I was surprised after going through the questionnaires with one of the people I had assist in this assignment because as I was able to watch the answers they selected and some of them were completely different answers that I would have selected for myself. So I really thought their results were going to differ a lot more from my own than they actually did. Although their scores for me were a little bit higher then mine they were still considered in the same scoring brackets. I suppose I was also surprise at some of the answers that others selected for me. For example, I know that speaking in public especially to a large group of people is one of my least favorite things to do and I get extremely nervous, even thinking back to all of my classroom presentations I did as a student from grammar school all the way up through my undergrad. So I was surprise as well that for some questions that asked about my "shakiness" when speaking in public other people did not perceive my nervousness as much as I thought, and certainly not as much as I actually feel when I'm speaking to a large group of people.
Over the past few weeks and after completing this week's assignments so far, I am definitely learning more clearly how diverse communication can be. You can communicate by talking with someone or people, you can communicate by how your dressed, by your physical features regarding your skin color, hair color, or gender, and on the opposing end, your communication skills are also measured by your ability to listen and receive information that's both verbal and nonverbal. There are just many factors that come together in the simplest chat to a formal presentation that will effect the message you're trying to get across as well as the message you are receiving. The three questionnaires also provided me more insight about myself, how I feel about my own communication skills, and what others perceive from my communication. I think now that I know a little bit more about what I display there are some areas that I would really like to work on in both my personal and professional life. In addition to gaining some personal insight from this week's assignment, I was fascinated that the two people who I had asked to take the questionnaires on my behalf became very interested in discovering what their own scores would be and ended up taking the tests for themselves afterward. Maybe this shows that, as individuals, we are more concerned about our persona than we think and by acting on our curiosity we might gain more knowledge about ourselves and the ability to improve our communication where needed.