Sources of Communication Apprehension in Classroom Experiential Exercises

Abstract

Marketing education constantly stresses the necessity of taking a consumer-focused segmentation approach to service design and delivery, but this is often ignored in the classroom, where all students are treated the same. Individual differences in perceptions and apprehensions about communicating may require specialized approaches instituting communication-intensive experiential class exercises. Job interviewing is a potentially attractive topic for in-class exercises with which to teach the dynamics of interpersonal, face-to-face buyer-seller interactions. The author conducted an exploratory study to see if students’ apprehensions and concerns about interviewing were unidimensional or multidimensional. Using communication apprehension theory as a base, the results indicate that students’ concerns about job interviewing can reflect underlying, generic communication difficulties, immediate situational concerns, or a combination of both. Implications for the marketing educator are that different types of communication apprehensions exist, and these differences imply multiple approaches for experiential exercises.