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In a recent article in this journal Willmington (1992) contrasts the perceived importance of communication skills considered to be necessary for teachers in the opinion of school administrators. Few would argue with Willmington's claim that oral communication skills are necessary for effective teaching. However, Willmington's study may be asking the wrong population. Additional stakeholders include the community, organizations that are most likely to hire graduates, and the students themselves. As tuition rise, students have increased their demand for accountable faculty. Since students are the clients, their opinions are critical in the analysis of oral communications.
The literature on students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness consists of thousands of studies. In a summary of this research, March and Bailey (1993) conclude that student evaluations are reliable and stable. Evaluations are relatively unaffected by a variety of variables hypothesized as potential biases to the ratings. They argue that student evaluations are useful by faculty seeking input about their teaching, by students for use in course selection, and by administrators for use in personnel decisions.
This article's contribution lies in extending our knowledge of oral communication skills by asking undergraduate students to rank the oral communication skills identified by Willmington. This information was gathered in order to answer the following four research questions.
1. What specific oral communication skills do students consider the most necessary for success in college teaching? 2. Can these skills be placed into any specific category, such as emotional, listening, language, message, physical, style or vocal factors?
3. Do administrators and students have different opinions regarding the necessity of specific oral communication behaviors?
4. Do males and females have different opinions regarding the necessity of specific oral communication behaviors?
The last question responds to the continued interest in gender-related differences in the learning and performance. Goodwin and Stevens (1993) provide a listing of studies concerning university students' opinions about the components of good teaching, while Birenbaum and Kraemer (1993) provide a listing of studies investigating the importance of student perceptions on learning. Additions to this literature during 1993 include Toh's (1993) finding that female science students are better at performing tasks, while males are do a better job deciphering results and conveying them. Females experience greater anxiety and less selfmotivation in computer courses according...