Active Listening Skills as Predictors of Success in Community College Students

ABSTRACT

Current research on employability skills in higher education tends to focus on communication and critical thinking as being key to that success in the classroom and the workforce. The research on active listening, another employability skill, tends to focus on specific college majors. The goal of the present mixed-methods study is to look at how crucial active listening as an employability skill is to academic achievement in a community college classroom and to explore students’ perspectives on active listening. A sample of 19 students took the AELS, and four students volunteered for semi-structured interviews. The author conducted a multiple regression and correlation analysis on the AELS scores, sex, and grades. Results indicated that active listening appears to be a significant predictor of academic achievement in the community college class, and community college students perceive listening to be an essential factor in their success. Future studies can expand upon these results by looking at different community college classes and majors as well as other predictor variables.