A competent view of “competence”

Preoccupation with definition and measurement of competence and skill is derived from a social science base. Such concern is an abstraction and not necessarily directed to improvement of pedagogical technology. The enterprise may be useful, but it would be more useful to re‐define the locus of interest in the field of speech communication to techniques of training performance improvement. Under such a redefinition, the process of defining performance and skill would result in a technology for communication skills training directed to personal and vocational needs of individuals rather than development of generalizations about acquisition and development of performance and skill.