Reports- Research /Technical (143)

Forty-one college studentsaarticipated ina stud designed to gather validity and reliability information on a procedure used to measure communication competence, the Communication Competency Assessment Instrument (CCAI). The study, in confirming operationalization validity, found 'that self-report meastftgl correlated only slightly with observations of students ' actual behaviors, while holistic impressions of competence were wholly consistent with the CCAI ratings. In addition, students ' persuasive speech grades and instructors ' impressions were found to correlate with the CCAI measureliadding to reip-cation, or convergent vali t Elaboration validity analysis discovertd that argumentativeness unrelated to CCAI scores. However,.a relationship existed between apprehension, knowledge, and skill, lending credence to the idea that, along with judgments of behavioral appropriateness, impressions of communication competence are also based on perceptions of motivation and knowledge that manifest themselves in actual communication behavior. References, tables, and a figure showing the Communication Competence Self-Report Scale items are appended. (Author/FL