COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS IN THE SUBMARINE FORCE, U. S. PACIFIC FLEET.
Abstract
It was hypothesized that if there were substantial disparity in the meanings to officers in the Force of certain words in common usage, then day to day interpersonal communication effectiveness would suffer. And, if the level of communication effectiveness were low it would indicate that inversely proportional levels of frustration, confusion, and heterogeneous behavior would detract from the ability of the organization to perform in an optimal manner. The meanings of 50 concepts to a sample of 64 officers were measured by the Semantic Differential, a highly reliable device with high face validity. The set of measurements for each officer was compared to that of every other officer, yielding a total of 2,016 comparisons, and counts were made in each comparison of the number of concepts out of 50 whose deviations in meaning fell into ranges of communication effectiveness or deficiency. In addition, counts were made of the number of times the deviations in meaning for each concept fell into the same ranges. Results showed that on the average, for the 50 concepts used, any two officers were able to communicate effectively with each other on about 22, less than half. And, on the average, serious obstacles to communication existed on about 11 out of 50, more than a fifth. In addition, it was found that on the average communication effectiveness existed for each concept in about 44% of the comparisons while serious obstacles to communication existed in about 22%.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0482808
Entities
People
- Louis L. Reagan
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School