An analysis of empathetic tendencies and communication skills of school directors in terms of some variables

Abstract

Communication is a process to associate and make sense of meanings, to generate information. Empathy is to understand one's emotions and thoughts truly by placing self in one's position. The reason why a relationship between communication and empathy exists is that empathy is affected by the nature of communication. In this study, levels of the empathetic tendency and communication skills of school directors are tried to be determined, the relation between empathetic tendencies and communication skills is described. The samples of this research are school directors working central district of Sivas. Statistical processes are realized with 153 school directors in these schools. In the analysis of research data, among descriptive statistics methods, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman's Correlational Test and Regression analysis are performed. According to the findings of research, considering the relationship between communication skills and empathetic tendencies of school directors, [r=.551 p>0.01] a medium level positive relation is seen. Director's communication skills are precursors of empathetic tendency (R=0.551, R2=0.304, p<00). Director's communication skills describe nearly %30 of empathetic tendency. Between school directors' communication skills and empathetic tendencies, a medium level and positive relation is seen. Communication skill is a variable predicting empathetic tendency. According to this, communication skills explain % 30 of empathetic tendencies. ©IDOSI Publications, 2013.