Communication
Communication
This domain tests the structure of the communication act, its models, barriers in the classroom, and non-verbal codes.
The skeleton of every model
Sender → encoding → message → channel → receiver → decoding → feedback, with noise acting at any point. Shannon–Weaver is linear (one-way, engineering origin); Berlo's SMCR adds source, message, channel, receiver attributes; Schramm adds the field of experience and makes it interactive; Barnlund makes it transactional (simultaneous sender–receiver).
Types and barriers
- Formal: downward (orders), upward (reports, grievances), horizontal (peer), diagonal. Informal: grapevine - fast, distorted, single-strand or gossip chain.
- Verbal vs non-verbal: kinesics (body movement), proxemics (space - Hall's intimate/personal/social/public zones), paralanguage (pitch, pace, pauses), oculesics (eye contact), chronemics (time), haptics (touch).
- Barriers: semantic (jargon, ambiguity), psychological (prejudice, inattention, emotion), organisational (hierarchy, filtering), physical (noise, distance), cultural.
Worked example
A lecture is disrupted because a generator starts outside the window and students miss the explanation. In Shannon–Weaver terms the disturbance is physical/environmental noise acting on the channel (the acoustic medium), not a semantic barrier - no word has become ambiguous, and feedback has not failed. If the teacher had used unexplained technical jargon, the barrier would be semantic.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling feedback a "channel"; feedback is a message travelling on a channel.
- Mixing upward and downward flow - a grievance to the principal is upward.
- Confusing proxemics (space) with chronemics (time).
- Selecting "noise" when the stem describes an attitude or status difference.