Competency-based education: teaching and assessing oral communication in Fairbanks, Alaska high schools

Abstract

Nationwide developments in the area of educational standards and accountability have produced a movement toward competency-based education in which teachers are increasingly tasked with facilitating the competencies within these developing standards. As a result, professionals in the Communication discipline have an opportunity to apply their knowledge of effective communication practices to provide benefits for students and teachers. The first phase of this study examined State and local educational standards in areas of speaking, listening, and group communication. Local and State standards identified as most closely aligned with standards developed by Communication professionals served as the basis for developing a questionnaire used in the study's second phase interviews to determine how local high school teachers operationalized and assessed these competencies in their classroom curricula. Results indicated that while speaking competencies were the most clearly defined and assessed in the classroom, listening and group communication competencies were in need of further clarification.