Importance of Effective Communication Skills in Higher Education

This report discusses the importance of developing communication skills for students in higher education. It covers different communication skills such as verbal and non-verbal communication skills, active listening, and others that help students to perform academic work with greater efficiency and effectiveness. The report also highlights the importance of collaboration with peers in developing effective communication skills.

Importance of effective
communication skills

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Communication............................................................................................................................3
Communication skills..................................................................................................................4
Importance of developing communication skills for students in higher education.....................5
Collaborating with peers helped to develop effective communication skills..............................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Communication is defined as the process of exchanging ideas, thoughts and concepts from one
person to another with using different mediums like speaking, writing and other. It is the act of
giving, receiving and sharing information with the objective of maintaining mutual
understanding. It is important for to students to have strong communication skills that enhances
them to gain knowledge and understanding regarding what teachers are trying to communication.
It facilitates students to perform with efficiency is higher education and attain determined
personal and professional goals on determined time period. Good communicator listen carefully
what other speak, write clearly as well as resect the opinion of others. This report covers
different communication skills and importance of improving or developing communication skills
for students in higher education. Along with that, importance of collaboration of peers in
developing effective communication skills are explained.
TASK
Communication
Communication is considered as the process that includes serious of actions and steps that
helps an individual to communicate their ideas, point of views and concepts to others in efficient
manner. Process of communication includes various aspects or components such as sender who
sends message, actual message, encoding of message, receiver who receives message and
decoding of message in understandable manner. There are various methods to communicate the
message to others in efficient manner such as verbal communication that occurs when students
are speaking with others, non-verbal communication when an individual speaks more than actual
words with the help of posture, eye-contact, facial expressions, hand movement and touch
(Bambaeeroo, and Shokrpour, 2017). Written communication when messages are communicated
in written format and listening that is the most important type of communication that helps
receiver to get information in actual manner what sender wants to convey. Visual communication
that can be happened through memes, videos and images that are easy to understand. All these
methods or type of communication helps students to gain understanding of academic con
concepts that enhances their performance and helps to attain determined goals and objective in
higher communication.

Communication skills
It is important for students to have effective and strong communication skill that enables them to
convey information to other in effective manner, interact with others as well as handle all issues
with greater efficiency in order to maintain mutual understanding. Strong communication skills
have huge impact on students working performance. There are various communication skills that
plays important role in the higher education are explained below:
Written and oral communication skills: Verbal communication is related to the communication
in which words are used to convey information to others through using both oral and written
communication. It is necessary for students to have these skills to perform with greater efficiency
and effectiveness in higher education. Oral communication is related to communicating message
through speaking. Students use this to answer the questions that are asked by teacher and
communicating with other students (Barr, 2017). While written communication is important for
students to completing their homework, assignment and writing answers in examination in
effective manner that helps to gain higher marks in higher education.
Presentation skill: It is important students to have effective presentation skills in order to
presenting their ideas, intentions and point of views to others in presentable manner that
maintains others interest in listening message and enable them responds on it accordingly. It can
be improved through communicating to others taking their feedbacks and make improvements.
In higher education various assignments are provided to students in which they need to express
their learning and experiences to others in which presentation skill help to perform task in
efficient manner.
Active listening skill: Active listening is the skill that is related to paying full attention on the
speaker to understand that what he wants to communication. It provides essence of the
conversation as well as remove all distractions. It enables students to listen lectures and enhances
their understanding of academic concepts. Proper and active listening resolves half of issues and
perform academic task on time in appropriate manner (Khasawneh, 2021). It enables students to
interact with other students and understand their point of views.
Non-verbal communication skills: There are various other aspects are included in effective
communication that makes it stronger such as body language, gesture, posture, facial
expressions, wye-contact and other that creates bond of trust with others and engage them in

communication process. At the time of oral exams and interview these skills reflects overall
personality of students.
Other communication skills: There are various other communication skills that make the
communication more effective and attractive such as maintaining confidence during expressing
own ideas and learning, clarity of thoughts and words, respecting other ideas and asking for
feedback to receiver. All these skills are necessary to have in students to gain higher graded in
higher education.
Importance of developing communication skills for students in higher education
Communication is defined as the mutual interaction of two or more individuals. It is important
for the students to develop effective communication skills for students whether communication is
oral or written that enable them to perform task of higher education in efficient manner (Moore,
and Morton, 2017). Some importance of enhancing communication skills is mentioned below:
Using correct medium of communication: Effective communication skills are important for
students to select appropriate mode or medium of communication such as verbal or
communication that fit in specific situation. Choosing appropriate medium helps students to
convey their learning, experience and other aspects to others in efficient manner that maintains
mutual understanding.
Enable to learn more from teacher: In higher education, students require depth and practical
learning regarding educational subjects. Development of effective communication skills are
important for students to ask questions to teachers in systematic and clear manner and enable to
discuss subjective as well as objective doubts. It helps teachers as well to recognise where
students have doubts than they teach students accordingly. Communication skills facilitates them
to listen and understand teacher’s point of view and ask questions with confidence that helps to
gain more understanding.
Help in career development: Having effective communication skills as well as knowledge of
vocabulary and confident physical expressions helps students to get desirable job after
completing their education. Communication skills differentiate the personality of students from
others and provide them competitive advantages (Ratna, 2019). Development of communication
skills boost students’ confidence and facilitates them to make their career in desirable field.
Enhance teamwork and collaborating attitude: Strong communication skills, positive
behaviour collaborative efforts help students to resolve problems in appropriate manner that are

raises during the gaining learning, working in team. Along with that communication skills
enhances the ability of students of teamworking that provides long-term benefits because they
can understand point of views of others and convey own idea to them that reduce conflicts. It
enables them to complete group projects or assignment with efficiency before deadline. In future
if students get chance of communicating with clients than they can communication them through
oral and written form of communication that helps them in their personal and career
development.
Develop professionalism in students: Effective and strong communication skill enhances
various qualities on students such as empathy, friendliness as well as professionalism in their
attitude and way of speaking while interacting with others. Proper communication leads students
efforts towards maintaining effective relationship with others and influence others with their
point of views (Suarta, and et. al.,2017). Verbal and non-verbal communication helps students to
develop professionalism in their personality and attaining the objective of career development.
Enhance students’ confidence and enable them to speak less and effective: Development of
communication skill is important for the students in higher education because it enhances level
of confidence in student that enables them to speak less and effective. During the time of
interview, it is important to maintain body language, posture and eye-contact that reflect
students’ confidence and their strong personality. Communication skills helps students to convey
their ideas or learning in limited words that creates mutual understanding and lead them towards
growth and success.
Enhance student’s memory: Development in communication skills enhance memory and
knowledge of students because they learn various concepts speaking, listening and interacting
with others. Use of communication skills, enhances students’ attention and enable them to
respond accordingly. It improves their vocabulary, knowledge and understanding that enable
them to perform with greater efficiency and effectiveness in higher education.
Because of all these reasons, development or improvement of various communication skill helps
students to perform their task with efficiency and effectiveness in higher education that ensures
growth and development in career.
Collaborating with peers helped to develop effective communication skills
Collaboration with peer is defined as the learning situation in which students work together in
face-to-face manner in classroom for attaining defined common goals and objectives. It enhances

various skills and capabilities of all team members such as developing higher-level thinking in
students, enhance their confidence as well as self-esteem. It helps students to develop their
communication skill and use it in education for gaining higher marks and improve performance.
Some benefits or role of collaborative working with peers in improving communication skills are
explained below:
Enhance knowledge of communication channels: Effective communication is established when
information is slow without any disturbance. In teamwork or collaborative working with peers, I
have gained depth understanding regarding different communication channels that are used to
communication message to other member in effective manner (Vlachopoulos, and Makri, 2017).
All students are sending their work with the help of emails, fax and other medium.
Hot desking: In collaborative working with peers, hot desking is conducted in which all team
members interact with each other with having expertise in different field. It plays important role
in understanding others and presenting my own point of view in front of others that enhances my
verbal communication skill, active listening and confidence level. All roles and responsibilities
regarding the projects and assignments are allotted in hot desking that maintain clear
communication as well as reducing the conflicts.
Presenting work: At the time of completion of work, all peers present their work to others to
ensure its efficiency and effectiveness. I have analysed that it enhances my presentation skill
because I have communicated all work that is done by me it enhances the sense of confidence
and enables me use various non-verbal cues such as hand movements, posture, voice pitch and
other to deliver message with more effectiveness. All these learning reflects my strong
personality in front of other group members.
Feedback: After presenting work by each team members, feedback is provided them by another
group members that enhances various communication skills such as active listening, provide
proper respond, respect other point of view, open-mindedness and others that helps to
communicate and interact with others in proper way (Vlachopoulos, and Makri, 2017).
Feedbacks helps students to improve their performance and quality of work that lead them
towards growth and success.
All these aspects of collaborative working with peers that help an individual to enhance their
various communication skills that facilitates them to communicate and understand others point of
view in efficient manner.

CONCLUSION
As per above report, it can be concluded that communication is the most important thing that
enables an individual to communicate their ideas, concepts, learning and point of views to others
in efficient manner. It is important for students to enhances different communication skills such
as verbal and non-verbal communication skills, active listening and others that help them to
perform academic work with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Development and
improvement in communication skills enhances students’ confidence, learning as well as lead
them towards career growth and development. Collaboration with peers also helped students to
improve communication skills that enhances their overall personality.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bambaeeroo, F. and Shokrpour, N., 2017. The impact of the teachers’ non-verbal communication
on success in teaching. Journal of advances in medical education &
professionalism, 5(2), p.51.
Barr, M., 2017. Video games can develop graduate skills in higher education students: A
randomised trial. Computers & Education, 113, pp.86-97.
Khasawneh, M.A.S., 2021. The degree of practicing effective communication skills among
teachers of learning disabilities in English language from their point of view. Journal
Educational Verkenning, 2(2), pp.1-9.
Moore, T. and Morton, J., 2017. The myth of job readiness? Written communication,
employability, and the ‘skills gap’in higher education. Studies in Higher
Education, 42(3), pp.591-609.
Ratna, H., 2019. The importance of effective communication in healthcare practice. Harvard
Public Health Review, 23, pp.1-6.
Suarta, and et. al.,2017, September. Employability skills required by the 21st century workplace:
A literature review of labor market demand. In International Conference on Technology
and Vocational Teachers (ICTVT 2017) (pp. 337-342). Atlantis Press.
Vlachopoulos, D. and Makri, A., 2017. The effect of games and simulations on higher education:
a systematic literature review. International Journal of Educational Technology in
Higher Education, 14(1), pp.1-33.
Vlachopoulos, D. and Makri, A., 2017. The effect of games and simulations on higher education:
a systematic literature review. International Journal of Educational Technology in
Higher Education, 14(1), pp.1-33.