The examination of relationship between the communication competency and the empathy competency of Primary School Teachers

Empathy as one of the connective components of social peace and comfort has been attracting more and more attention day by day. The presence of empathy competency in people who are serving in sectors where humanity is central, empathy is a component that increases the quality of service. The determination of whether empathy is developable or not, and the identification and extensification of empathy developer methods are important. Also, empathy is a sub-element of the communication competencies. The development of one of these two elements is supposed to have a positive effect on the other one as well. The determination of the privileged element and the development of the other element from this point of view are predicted to promote the educationalist productivity. The research findings promote the quality of education by guiding the policy makers. This research was aimed at examining whether the empathy and the communication competencies of primary school teachers that work in Istanbul, Sancaktepe demonstrate a statistically significant difference according to the variables of gender, age, marital status, graduation, period of service, speciality and the number of students, teachers and managers in school. The descriptive survey model was used in this research. The population of the research consists of the primary school teachers that serve in Istanbul, Sancaktepe during 2013-2014 education year. As of March, 2014, the number of primary school teachers in Istanbul, Sancaktepe is 1200. As it was not possible to reach all of the population of the study, a sample was determined. A scale was applied to 481 teachers that were randomly chosen from the population. To measure the empathy tendencies of teachers, the five point likert type Empathy Tendency Scale that was developed by Dokmen (1988) which consists of 3 sub-scales such as Egocentric Tendency, Empathic Tendency and Sympathetic Tendency and 20 items was used. Cronbach's alfa value that indicates the internal consistency of the scale is 0,81. To measure the communication competencies of teachers, the five point likert type Communication Competency Inventory developed by Ersanlı and Balcı (1998) that has three sub-scales such as Emotional Communication competence, Mental communication competence and behavioral communication competence and 45 items was used. Cronbach's alfa value that indicates the internal consistency of the scale is 0,72. Demographical features' frequency and percentage values were examined and the mean and the standard deviation of the scores were calculated by using SPSS 15.0 program for the analysis of the data. To evaluate whether the scores demonstrate differences, the scores of Empathy tendency and communication competency scales; independent samples t-test was used. To evaluate whether the scores of empathy tendency and communication competency demonstrate a difference according to gender, marital status and speciality Independent Samples T-test; to evaluate whether the scores of empathy and communication competency demonstrate a difference according to age, the number of students, graduation and the period service in Istanbul Kruskal Wallis-H Test; to determine in which groups important differences ocur Mann Whitney-U ;to evaluate whether the scores of empathy tendency and communication competency demonstrate a difference according to the number of teacher, managers and the period service One Way Anova was used. The relationship among the total points of the scales, Communication Competency Scale total points and Empathetic Tendency Scale sub-scales were examined by Pearson Product-Moment Analysis. According to the results of the research; the communication skills of teachers are generally sufficient ( =3,45), mental communication skills are generally sufficient ( =3,57), emotional communication skills are generally sufficient ( =3,22), and behavioral communication skills are generally sufficient ( =3,57). Teachers Empathy Tendency is notably sufficient ( =3,62). Teachers are hesistant about their egocentric tendencies ( =2,93), empathetic tendencies ( =2,92) and sympathetic tendencies ( =2,97). Gender, age, merital status, period of service in Istanbul, speciality, number of students, teachers and managers in school are not effective factors on teachers' communication skills. Teachers' graduation and periods of service are effective factors on their communication skills. Gender, marital status and speciality are not effective factors on teachers' empathy tendencies. Age, graduation, period of service, period of service in Istanbul, number of students, teachers and managers are effective factors of teachers' empathic tendencies. There is a positive relationship between teachers' communication skills and their empathetic tendencies. Key Words: Communication, Empathy, Teacher, School, Student