NCA standards met in Welfare-to-work life skills curriculum

With Federal welfare reform, states are under pressure to move welfare recipients off of welfare roles and into employment.  In order to do so, however, the clients often need training of various kinds, including what might be called “life and work skills.” This sort of training often would include training in communication.

A team of faculty and staff members at Arizona State University West was invited to evaluate a program that prepared welfare recipients for work.  In the process of doing so, Vincent R. Waldron, an associate professor of communication studies, Melissa Lavitt, associate professor and chair of social work, and Margaret McConnaughy, a career adviser, looked at the communication portion of the two-week intensive training session.  The report of this examination appears in the January 2001 issue of Communication Education.

The ASU West team collected data by tracking 101 students across a year’s time.  They reviewed the curriculum, conducted interviews with clients and staff, did follow-up interviews with clients, and analyzed archival data.  In pouring over these data, they looked for indications that the curriculum was teaching one or more of the competencies associated with NCA’s Standards for Instruction in Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy in Grades K-12.

Most of the participants in the program were women, and most of them had not finished high school.  Prior to taking this course, students had been enrolled in programs designed to help them earn GED certificates or had received job-specific training.  Generally, the students took this last course just prior to beginning to apply for permanent employment.  As most of the students could be considered to be high school graduates by the time they took the course, the team reasoned that the K-12 standards would be appropriate for this group.

The team found that the curriculum taught in the course relied heavily on most of the NCA standards, even though it was not designed specifically to do so.  Only two media literacy standards, “Media literate communicators demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the complex relationships among audiences and media content, “ and “Media literate communicators demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the commercial nature of media,” were not included in the curriculum.  Standards were implemented both implicitly and explicitly.  Implicit implementation was accomplished indirectly, usually by being incorporated into an exercise.  Explicit implementation was accomplished typically through lecture or media presentations.  There was heavy emphasis on analysis of one’s audience, use of language, reduction of anxiety associated with communication, and listening in the explicit presentation of material.  Public speaking, interviewing, and adaptation were taught mainly through the implicit mode.

While the curriculum contained fairly solid references to and practice in basic communication abilities, the interviews revealed some problems.  A number of clients seemed to have experienced unrealistic expectations about the nature of work, the difficulties in getting along with others at work, or the sorts of positions for which they would be qualified as a result of taking the training.  While communication problems were by no means the major cause of an individual being unsuccessful on the job, the research team concluded that additional emphases on communication beyond the hiring process would be useful.  They also called on communication researchers to contribute more directly to similar welfare-to-work training programs that have been established across the U.S.  They commended the NCA standards and competencies as a good starting point for designing these sorts of programs.

Waldron, V. R., Lavitt, M., & McConnaughy, M.  (2001).  “Welfare-to-work”: An analysis of the communication competencies taught in a job training program serving an urban poverty area.  Communication Education, 50, 15-33.

Reported by Bill Eadie, NCA Associate Director.