Engineering Students’ Communication Skills, Their Socioeconomic Backgrounds and Academic Excellence

Abstract

The research article has underlined the prominence of communication skills of students in the current scenario. Studying a sample of 619 final year engineering students in Ernaulam District, Kerala State, India, the authors have investigated and presented their communication abilities. The research tool employed is a pre-tested questionnaire. Reliability of the items were found to be acceptable with a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.753. The variables studied were: the skill levels of students, socio-economic background, parental education and academic excellence in the engineering examinations. The findings have shown that the students have ‘moderate’ to ‘good’ level of communication skills. These skills varied significantly with respect to their socio economic background and mother’s as well as father’s educational levels. There were no significant variations in the skill levels with regard to students’ academic excellence.