Communications (COMM) 329

Overview

COMM 329: The Practice of Interpersonal Communication is a three-credit, senior-level undergraduate communication course.  It challenges you to become an informed, critical helper by listening and attending to a client’s interpersonal communication problem.  This communication course, which was originally offered as a psychology course, teaches you to conduct therapeutic dialogues with two different individuals who need to discuss their problems.

Textbook examples derived from counselling sessions help to illustrate key communication concepts and skills and to identify problems. These examples, drawn from outside the business workplace, highlight interpersonal communication problems that are also relevant to students of business communication.

Learning activities in the course will teach you to practise, apply, and master seven interpersonal communication skills effectively.  These include summarization, open and statement probing, sharing basic empathic highlights, creating immediacy, challenging, advanced empathic highlights, active listening, and attending to a client’s needs.

Course assignments require that you practise these skills effectively as a participant observer by conducting client-helper interviews and then engaging in reflective report-writing about the process and outcome of the interviews.  You must relate communication concepts to lesson scenarios or to a client’s problem in an interview session in each of the assignments.  The course textbook presents a helping model to follow in order to organize and manage client interviews efficiently, while the online course materials provide a critical framework for assessing the interview process. However, the key to successfully completing your course assignments is early and ongoing interaction to discuss your plans and progress with your academic expert via the Student Support Centre.

There are no prerequisites for registering in COMM 329.  Nevertheless, you should be familiar with communication skills taught in COMM 243:  Interpersonal Communication or COMM 277:  Group Communication.

Outline

Part One: The Groundwork for Helping

• Lesson 1: Introduction to Helping
• Lesson 2: Overview of the Helping Model
• Lesson 3: The Helping Relationship: Values in Action

Part Two: Basic Communication Skills for Helping

• Lesson 4: Introduction to Communication
• Lesson 5: Active Listening
• Lesson 6: Sharing Empathic Highlights
• Lesson 7: The Art of Probing and Summarizing

Part Three: Advanced Communication Skills for Helping

• Lesson 8: Step 1-A: Helping Clients Tell Their Stories
• Lesson 9: Reluctant and Resistant Clients
• Lesson 10: Step 1-B: The Nature of Challenging
• Lesson 11: Step 1-B: Specific Challenging Skills
• Lesson 12: Step 1-B: The Wisdom of Challenging
• Lesson 13: Step 1-C: Leverage

Evaluation

To receive credit for COMM 329, you must complete three written assignments, achieve a minimum grade of “D” (50 percent) on the final examination, and achieve an overall grade of at least “D” (50 percent) on the entire course. The credit weightings for each assignment are as follows:

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Course Materials

Textbooks

Other Materials

Students will access all other course materials online.

Challenge for Credit Course Overview

The Challenge for Credit process allows students to demonstrate that they have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university level course.

Full information for the Challenge for Credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.

• Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Policy
• Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Procedures

Challenge Evaluation

To receive credit for the COMM 329 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least “D” (50 percent) on the examination.

Online Exam (3 hours)

Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Course Registration Form

• Challenge for Credit Form