University assertive communication meta-capability: Analysis in nursing teachers

Abstract

The teaching-learning process is a social phenomenon that requires an interpersonal communication between the teacher and students, therefore it's necessary that this is as assertive as possible, especially in university environments. Therefore, the objective was analyze the assertive communication meta-capability in the teachers of Universidad Nacional Experimental de la Fuerza Armada Bolivariana (UNEFAB), in Maracay during second period of year 2011. For this, in a sample of 172 students, a questionnaire with 63 items that presented five answer options with Likert scale (1-5) was applied, to study according to their perceptions the dimensions of communicative competence, speech features and empathy of the teachers; additionally, the students repetition effect in their perceptions about the communicative meta-capability of the teachers was studied, for which an ANOVA was applied to observe if there were differences between repeating and non-repeating students. A high level of presence in the dimensions studied was observed, that on average evidenced a high level of assertive commucative meta-capability (3.82 ± .2) in the teachers; on the other hand, no significant differences (P > .05) in the perceptions of repeating and non-repeating students. It concludes that the nursing careers teachers of UNEFAB presented a high level of assertive communicative meta-capability, according to the students’ perspective, the teachers were able to communicate openly their ideas, with respect and searching the student benefit.