British Journal of Guidance & Counselling

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An inventory for assessing interpersonal

communication competence of college students

Yun-Chen Huang & Shu-Hui Lin

To cite this article: Yun-Chen Huang & Shu-Hui Lin (2018) An inventory for assessing
interpersonal communication competence of college students, British Journal of Guidance &
Counselling, 46:4, 385-401, DOI: 10.1080/03069885.2016.1237614

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2016.1237614

Published online: 04 Oct 2016.

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BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING
2018, VOL. 46, NO. 4, 385–401
https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2016.1237614

An inventory for assessing interpersonal communication

competence of college students
Yun-Chen Huanga and Shu-Hui Linb
a
Department & Graduate School of Accounting Information, National Taichung University of Science and
Technology, Taichung, Taiwan; bDepartment of Insurance and Finance, National Taichung University of Science
and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

We have developed and validated a new Interpersonal Communication Received 13 July 2015
Competence Inventory (ICCI) for college students. Study 1 describes the Revised 13 July 2016
development of the ICCI and results of an exploratory factor analysis of Accepted 9 September 2016
data from 1336 Chinese students, which identified a four-factor model
KEYWORDS
with reasonable internal consistency. Study 2 describes results of a Interpersonal communication
confirmatory factor analysis of data from 593 Chinese students, which competence; college
cross-validated the four-factor model as well as supporting the validity students; listening; social
of the overall scale. Taken together, these results suggest that the ICCI is relaxation; empathy;
a psychometrically valid measure of interpersonal communication expressiveness
competence of college students.

Introduction
Interpersonal communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to manage interper-
sonal relationships in communication settings (Rubin & Martin, 1994). Past research findings have
consistently supported the importance of communicative competence in a variety of relational con-
texts including especially, college success, persistence, emotion, learning outcomes, life satisfaction
and even future occupations (Ghorbanshiroudi, Khalatbari, Salehi, Bahari, & Keikhayfarzaneh, 2011;
Morreale, Osborn, & Pearson, 2000; Rubin, Graham, & Mignerey, 1990; Wei, Russell, & Zakalik,
2005). Specifically, student’s ability to communicate with others has an impact not only on his/her
success in establishing satisfying relationships but also on his/her satisfaction with the college or uni-
versity. Since individuals in the young adult age group are more sensitive in managing interpersonal
relationships than other age groups (Matsudaira, Fukuhara, & Kitamura, 2008), a successful interper-
sonal communication is not only a need but a requirement for college students. From a counselling
perspective, competent interpersonal interaction is important for the development of college stu-
dents’ interpersonal relationship and a great deal of attention needs to be paid. Thus, the assessment
of communication competence is obviously important to researchers and counsellors. This study
reports the development of a self-report instrument for briefly and reliably assessing the interperso-
nal communication competence of college students. Results can help colleges, universities and
campus support services to have more understanding of student competence and target the need
of students.
College/university counselling centres have played a vital role in campus to provide mental health
services to their students. Due to the diversity of students and the complexity of students’ problems,
the services of college/university counselling centres become diverse, multi-channelled and multi-
dimensional to respond to the needs of student (Lin, Chiu, Hsieh, Chen, & Lai, 2015). The obstacle

CONTACT Shu-Hui Lin suelin@nutc.edu.tw

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
386 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

in the development of interpersonal relationship is one of the problems and needs help to overcome.
Take Taiwan for example, it has been reported that Taiwanese students have problems or stress on
interpersonal relationship, and some of them are showing degrees of psychological/psychiatric
symptoms (John Tung Foundation, 2005; Wang, 2004; Wang & Pan, 2006). Similarly, a research on
a sample of Canada college students concluded that communication skills appear to influence the
effect of social relationship on student loneliness and subsequent depression (DiTommaso,
Brennen-McNulty, Ross, & Burgess, 2003). It is urgent for college/university counselling centres to
promote services which can assist students to deal with the problems in interpersonal relationship
and to enhance the ability in communication during their journey of university career. The empirical
results of studies have shown that certain training programmes can enable students to exhibit a con-
siderable increase of competence in communication (Hausberg et al., 2012; Simmenroth-Nayda,
Weiss, Fischer, & Himmel, 2012). Accordingly, in Taiwan, college/university counselling centres
always conduct various activities direct at their students, such as discourse, lectures, seminars and
symposiums, for improving students’ interpersonal communication competence. No matter in
Taiwan or elsewhere, a measure to assess student’s ability in interpersonal communication seems
necessary for counselling practice, so that dysfunctional student behaviours can be identified and
successful training programmes can be implemented for improving student’s ability (Baringer &
McCroskey, 2000).
Although there are many existing assessment tools related to communication or social interaction
skills, there are several reasons why a new instrument is necessary. First, most existing tools are dated,
for example, the Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (ICCS; Rubin & Martin, 1994), the
Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire (Buhrmester, Furman, Wittenberg, & Reis, 1988) and the
Social Skill Inventory (Riggio, 1986). Since society and communication practices change over time,
an up-to-date assessment tool is desirable. Second, little work has examined or confirmed the
factor structure of existing measurements so these measures have questionable validity and utility.
Third, for students a simple assessment tool is needed to quickly diagnosing issues related to inter-
personal communication competence so that these might be addressed by remedial instruction.
Accordingly, to improve these problems greater attention needs to be given to the specific facets
of interpersonal competence.
The terminology used to describe the behaviours, motives and skills adopted during social inter-
actions is varied, including terms such as social skills, interpersonal skills, communicative competence
and interpersonal competence (Arroyo & Segrin, 2011). Nonetheless, it is generally held that students’
abilities to communicate with others have an impact on their success in a variety of relational out-
comes and on their satisfaction. Ghorbanshiroudi et al. (2011), for example, confirmed that effective
communication skills increase emotional intelligence and life satisfaction. Rubin et al. (1990) found
that student communication competence was linked to communication apprehension and learning
outcomes. Morreale et al. (2000) highlighted the need for communication education. They pointed
out that individuals with poor communication skills are sometimes viewed as less attractive by
their peers and enjoy fewer friendships. Wei et al. (2005) reported that university students with
high degrees of self-efficacy towards developing interpersonal relationships and increased self-dis-
closure in relationships predicted lower depression. In addition, the ability to communicate is also
valuable for obtaining employment and maintaining successful job performance after graduation
(Morreale et al., 2000). These findings underline the importance for students of good communication
and suggest that it may be necessary to provide students with training in the management of inter-
personal relationships.
While there is great interest in the notion of communicative competence, the concept is difficult to
define in a general way (Rickheit, Strohner, & Vorwerg, 2008). Many researchers have attempted to
depict the traits or behaviours a competent person has or are expected to have that can make inter-
action smooth and successful. As one’s traits seem to be stable qualities that cannot be altered
through instruction, yet skills can be improved with instruction and change over time (Rubin &
Martin, 1994), here we assessed one’s communication competence from the skills related to
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 387

interpersonal development. In addition, McCroskey and McCroskey (1988) asserted the utility of self-
reported measures of competent communication performance, suggesting that an individual’s self-
perceptions of his/her competence level may actually be more important than his/her actual compe-
tence level. Also, there is evidence to suggest that variables inherent in individual contribute to per-
ceived communication competence from the perspective of the other (Arasaratnam, 2009). For this
study, we adopted a definition of communicative competence as a set of component interpersonal
communication skills which were assessed via self-report with the assumption that students self-per-
ception regarding these skills will generally correspond to their actual abilities. Thus, a new instru-
ment of communication competence relying on self-reported data is developed in this study and
a set of component communication skills which are instrumental in producing appropriate and effec-
tive interaction is posited, and then included in the new instrument.
A number of researchers have assessed various aspects of communication competence. For
example, Rubin and Martin (1994) summarised important interpersonal competence skills from pub-
lished text, including self-disclosure, empathy, social relaxation, assertiveness, interaction manage-
ment, altercentrism, expressiveness, supportiveness, immediacy and environmental control.
Spitzberg (1997) examined the concept of interactional competence in intercultural contexts and for-
mulated lists of skills, abilities and attitudes to summarise the literature of intercultural competence
(e.g. empathy, verbal/nonverbal behaviours, social adjustment, interaction involvement, etc.). Some
comprehensive measures of interpersonal communication competence have been conducted;
however, according to Rickheit et al.’s (2008) viewpoint that by specifying communication skills for
a rather narrow range of particular behaviours and situations, it is easier to define them and to
analyse methods for assessment and intervention. Thus, in the present study importance was
especially given to the various facets of interpersonal communicative competence identified in the
interpersonal literature. Specifically, the present study intended to evaluate student’s communication
competence through some main facets relevant to college student’s life which include listening,
empathy, expressiveness and social relaxation.
First, listening is considered to be an essential component of success in interpersonal communi-
cation (Bodie, 2011; Haas & Arnold, 1995). Active listening has long been known as a communication
skill that the speaker is taken seriously and the listener shows interest in what the speaker is saying.
To investigate which interpersonal communication skills managers are expected to possess, Bamba-
cas and Patrickson (2008) conducted a series of interviews with senior human resource managers and
found that the ability to actively listen was highly emphasised. Haas and Arnold (1995) examined how
organisation members use listening and listening-related factors in judgements of communication
competence. Analyses revealed that listening accounts for approximately one-third of the character-
istics perceivers use to evaluate communication competence. The willingness to listen was found to
be positively related to communication skills (Roberts & Vinson, 1998). Listening has been treated as a
key dimension of communication competence (Cupach & Spitzberg, 1981; Du, Gao, & Ba, 2011; Rubin
& Martin, 1994).
Second, a person who performs well in interpersonal communication should have empathy. That
is, he/she should have the ability to identify with and understand another’s situation and feelings.
Empathy enables people to engage in the work of communicating (Bondi, 2003). It can help
create an interpersonal climate free of defensiveness and enables individuals to talk about their per-
ceptions of need (Mercer & Reynolds, 2002). Research investigating the relationship between vari-
ables of empathy and conflict resolution skills indicated that levels of empathic tendency were
positively related to problem-solving skills (de Wied, Branje, & Meeus, 2007). No wonder empathy
has been regarded as an important phenomenon in interpersonal communication (Bubas, 2001;
Chang & Huang, 2001; Hsu, 2000; Ickes, 1993).
Third, a person with competent communication should have the ability to communicate expres-
sively with others. Expressiveness is the ability to reflect self-disclosure and expression of feelings
(Graham, Papa, & Brooks, 1992), by verbal and nonverbal behaviours that provide vivacity, animation,
intensity and variability in communicative behaviour. After reviewing previous literature on instructor
388 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

expressiveness, Veletsianos (2009) highlighted the value of expressiveness as a means to enhance

communication and smooth interactions. It is reasonable to argue for the importance of expressive-
ness not only for instructors but also for students when they interact with others. Not surprisingly,
many existing scales included expressiveness as a main component of communication (Bubas,
2003; Chang & Huang, 2001; Cupach & Spitzberg, 1981; Du et al., 2011; Rubin & Martin, 1994; Spitz-
berg, 2007).
Fourth, social relaxation is also an important behaviour for social interactions (Bubas, 2001). Social
relaxation is defined as a feeling of comfort, low apprehension and ability to handle another’s nega-
tive reactions or criticism without undue stress (Rubin & Martin, 1994). Some people are fearful of
social encounters with unfamiliar others or may experience anxiety during interactions particularly
with strangers or new surroundings. Such people are perceived as less competent, appropriate
and attractive when they interact with others (Rubin, Perse, & Barbato, 1988) and may have less will-
ingness to communicate. Youth with socially anxiety, for example, had lower levels social acceptance,
negative peer relationships (Storch et al., 2006), hindered social functioning and were less able to
adapt (Angelico, Crippa, & Loureiro, 2013). It should be noted that while too much anxiety seriously
hinder one’s performance, a moderate amount of anxiety may be helpful to perform well (Schlanger,
2012). Thus, here ‘social relaxation’ means that one does not have too much anxiety and is also not
overconfident in communication settings. It is also a main component for communication assess-
ment scales.
In sum, in order to develop a new instrument, we considered communication skills emphasised by
existing assessment tools and relevant to student life. After reviewing the literature relevant to inter-
personal communication, four skills were identified as fundamental behaviours for a person to com-
municate well. According to this framework, interpersonal communication can be briefly broken
down into four basic skills: listening, social relaxation, empathy and expressiveness. These four
skills are considered important components of college students’ interpersonal communication. In
addition, one important thing to notice is that a communicative style that may be effective and
appropriate in one culture or country may be inappropriate in another (Matsudaira et al., 2008).
Therefore, this study began with a selection of different skills, identified in the interpersonal literature,
as far as possible concerning both non-Western and Western contexts. A total of four skills, not
focused on any specific culture, were selected to represent constitutive components of interpersonal
communication competence. In other words, even though cultural differences may affect preferred
communicative styles, communicative attributes, favoured traits and interpersonal skills (Bubas, 2001;
Hofstede & McCrae, 2004; Hsu, 2004, 2007), the set of such skills that chosen for this study is nearly
universal and could generally relate to the competent interpersonal interaction of college students.
To conclude, when one can always listen to the speakers, relax in social environment, show
empathy of others’ state and interact expressively with others he/she may be considered competent
in interpersonal interaction. In the present study, it is expected and hypothesised that a model con-
sisting of four correlated factors measuring listening, social relaxation, empathy and expressiveness
would describe appropriately the interpersonal communication competence.
The research reported below reflects an attempt to develop a practical, self-reporting measure of
interpersonal communication competence. The first study describes the development of the inven-
tory and results of an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The second study describes a confirmatory
factor analysis (CFA) aimed to assess the validity of the identified factors underlying interpersonal
communication competence. Also, the study employs tests of model invariance to determine if
the inventory demonstrates consistent measurement characteristics across gender.

Study 1: scale development and EFA

The purpose of Study 1 was (a) to generate items for a scale to measure the construct of interpersonal
communication competence among college students and (b) to perform an EFA to assess the factor
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 389

structure of the scale items, and to investigate the initial estimates of internal consistency of the Inter-
personal Communication Competence Inventory (ICCI) scores.

Method
Scale construction
Before developing our instrument, relevant researches related to communication competence were
reviewed (e.g. Arasaratnam, 2009; McCroskey & McCroskey, 1988; Rubin & Martin, 1994). Especially,
several sources on test development and validation were consulted (e.g. Brennan, 2006; Downing
& Haladyna, 2006; Haladyna, 2004; Hogan, 2007) and efforts were made to follow those recommen-
dations or guidelines. The construction phase involved the generation of the initial item pool, review
of the items and final editing of the items. In addition to generating items based on earlier studies of
interpersonal interactions, we also had a brainstorming session by a group consisting of 30 under-
graduates and 5 faculties. Throughout the session, participants offered suggestions by which com-
munication competence could be assessed to aid in the construction of initial items. From the
literature reviewed and the student and faculty responses, a preliminary item pool consisted of 36
statements in the Chinese language was developed.
For simplicity, as the item pool was created, item review committees were assembled to initially
review items. The reviewers (including four specialists in psychology and counselling) mainly focused
on the appropriateness of items according to the four facets of communication competence. They
were invited to rated items to determine how well the item measured the objective to which it
was matched. A scale of 1–6 was used, with 6 being exemplary, and any item rated a 3 or below
was excluded. The process resulted in reducing the number of the preliminary scale to 24. The 24
items were incorporated into the initial ICCI.
To help establish content validity, four scholars in guidance and counselling, experienced in the
scale development process, were invited to evaluate the initial inventory. In this stage, decisions
were made as to whether items should be retained, revised or discarded. Especially, recommen-
dations regarding relevance, clarity, brevity and singularity of items were also given. Based on eva-
luators’ feedback, 2 items were excluded because of redundancy and 7 items were reworded for
clarification, resulting in a 22-item inventory.
Finally, the revised scale was subsequently evaluated by 20 undergraduates. Students were asked
to read all of the items. It revealed a number of words and phrases the students were hard to read or
comprehend and the wording of some items was further revised according to students’ suggestions.
As a result, the revision process led to a final pool of 22 items.

Participants
An initial sample consisted of 1382 undergraduates from 6 universities in central Taiwan participated
in the study. Students were recruited from various psychology, accounting, economics, statistics and
computer science courses. Participants with missing value on any item were excluded from the data
set and the valid sample consisted of 1336 undergraduates (607 males and 729 females). Their age
ranged from 21 to 25 years old, with a mean age of 22.1 years (SD = 1.83). The grade levels included
freshmen (27.6%), sophomores (42.8%), juniors (19.5%) and seniors (10.1%).

Measures
The questionnaire consisted of a demographic information section and the preliminary ICCI.
Demographic information. Participants were asked to provide the following demographic
information: age, gender, grade level and major in college.
The preliminary ICCI. As described above, the ICCI was constructed in Chinese language. It
consisted of 22 items that measured interpersonal communication competence among college
students arising from skills of expressiveness, listening, empathy and social relaxation. Responses
were made on a 5-point Likert-type scale: 1 = not at all characteristic of me, 2 = not really
390 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

characteristic of me, 3 = moderately characteristic of me, 4 = characteristic of me and 5 = very charac-

teristic of me. Higher scores indicated that student has better communication skill while interacting
with others.

Procedure and data analysis

After an informed consent procedure, participants anonymously completed questionnaires in class-
rooms. The purpose of the study was explained to the students, and consent to participate in the
study was obtained from all students involved. Participants were reminded that their responses
were considered confidential and that their participation was completely anonymous. Students
received no incentives for volunteering to participate in this study.
Analyses were performed with SPSS 22.0 software. After the data were collected, they were
screened and those with missing information or data entry errors were excluded (about 3%). Next,
we inspected the distributional properties of each variable to assess assumptions of normality.
Skew and kurtosis indices of each variable were computed. The values of skewness ranged from
−.67 to .25 and the values of kurtosis ranged from −.45 to .36, so all variables used in the analyses
met the assumptions for normality (Kline, 2010). Further, the inter-item correlation matrix was exam-
ined for its suitability for factor analysis. Generally, the inter-item correlation matrix is factorable if the
majority of the correlation coefficients are least low–moderate to strong (r ≥ .2) (Mvududu & Sink,
2013). Table 1 is the inter-item correlation matrix that appears, by visual inspection, to be factorable.
Before performing factor analysis, the adequacy of data set was also examined, by assessing the
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity, to ensure
that such analysis was appropriate. The goal of the study was to conduct more theoretical explora-
tions of the underlying factor structure, so we used principal axis factor analysis as the extraction
method in EFA. As to the method of rotation, on the one hand, we could not ensure that factors
in the study are uncorrelated which is the constraint for orthogonal rotation; on the other hand,
some researchers argue that oblique rotation is always the best approach because (a) factor intercor-
relations are the norm in social sciences and (b) both approaches (oblique and orthogonal rotation)
yield the same result if the factors happen to be uncorrelated (Costello & Osborne, 2005). Thus, the
oblique promax rotation was used in EFA.
The criteria adopted for determining factors were as follows: eigenvalue >1; scree plot; items
should preferably weight greater than .4 on the relevant factor and less than .4 on all other
factors; conceptual clarity and interpretability. Finally, as to the examination of internal consistency,
taking into account the ordinal nature of the data, reliability estimates based on the polychoric cor-
relation matrix were computed (Gadermann, Guhn, & Zumbo, 2012). The ordinal coefficients alpha
has been recommended to be at least .70 for having internal consistency and reliability (Nunnally &
Bernstein, 1994).

Results
To test the factor structure of the developed measurement, an EFA was performed on the 22-item
ICCI and the reliability estimates were constructed. The KMO and Bartlett’s test of sphericity
yielded satisfactory results for the constructed scale (KMO = .887; x2 = 6837.882, p = .000), suggesting
that the data set are factorable. Principal axis factor analyses with promax rotations were adopted.
The number of factors to retain was based on a combination of methods stated earlier. As a result,
the preliminary analysis showed that seven items should be excluded because they did not have sig-
nificant loadings on each factor (as presented in Table 2). We then ran a second EFA with the remain-
ing 15 items. This procedure led to the retention of four factors, each comprising four, four, four and
three items and with an eigenvalue of 4.31, 1.95, 1.16 and 1.07, respectively. The resulting four-factor
model accounted for 57% of the variation.
On the basis of these results, 15 items comprised the final ICCI. They were labelled in the following
way: Factor 1, listening skill, consists of four items that evaluate one’s ability to concentrate or
Table 1. The inter-item correlation matrix for 22 items.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
2 .03
3 .37 .02
4 .25 .06 .37
5 .33 .01 .42 .44
6 .06 .14 .03 .14 .22
7 .04 .15 .10 .21 .22 .55
8 .13 .07 .10 .23 .23 .45 .45
9 .09 .02 .08 .12 .08 .31 .37 .32
10 .02 .00 .04 .10 .02 .26 .32 .32 .43
11 .05 .09 .11 .06 .03 .30 .36 .26 .37 .43

BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING

12 .02 .01 .09 .15 .14 .30 .31 .26 .32 .46 .44
13 .11 .09 .13 .21 .24 .35 .35 .29 .28 .29 .31 .40
14 .07 .04 .13 .20 .15 .26 .28 .32 .23 .29 .23 .32 .38
15 .14 .09 .14 .22 .23 .28 .33 .25 .35 .24 .28 .34 .37 .30
16 .02 .07 .05 .11 .10 .25 .29 .22 .26 .24 .22 .31 .29 .26 .33
17 .05 .04 .07 .11 .12 .25 .26 .21 .20 .25 .26 .27 .27 .20 .27 .41
18 .11 .08 .23 .23 .23 .29 .29 .21 .23 .26 .22 .33 .29 .22 .29 .38 .29
19 .16 .10 .24 .21 .21 .26 .31 .21 .23 .14 .27 .21 .30 .21 .29 .26 .27 .43
20 .13 .05 .14 .22 .21 .22 .26 .26 .13 .22 .14 .21 .26 .22 .20 .25 .22 .23 .20
21 .09 .06 .06 .04 .07 .02 .04 .03 .01 .04 .01 .02 .01 .02 .05 .09 .08 .03 .05 .04
22 .13 .04 .12 .22 .22 .23 .26 .23 .14 .14 .12 .22 .24 .21 .23 .21 .21 .28 .22 .22 .09
Note: Of the 231correlations, 140 are ≥.20, suggesting that the matrix is perhaps factorable.

391
392 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

Table 2. Rotated factor pattern from the first EFA.

Factor
1 2 3 4
10. In conversations with friends, I know what topics we talk about .838 −.100 −.056 −.084
12. I give positive feedback while others talked to me .631 .175 −.010 −.133
11. I listen carefully to others during a conversation .620 .024 −.061 .004
9. I show an interest on the conversations in most occasions .536 −.025 −.006 .100
14. I pay attention to the conversation in most occasions .288 .128 .090 .093
16. While talking to others I always think about how they feel .019 .696 −.174 −.002
18. I don’t pay much attention to what others are feeling .000 .588 .073 −.010
17. I can put myself in another person’s shoes while discussing .065 .548 −.114 .001
19. I am sensitive to the needs and feelings of the other person −.040 .455 .142 .066
22. I would like to make others to know me .234 .319 .049 .044
15. I am sympathetic over what happened to others −.093 .291 .125 .185
13. I am a good listener .255 .260 .083 .119
20. I am verbally/nonverbally supportive of other people .034 .174 .148 .139
3. It is not difficult for me to get along well with new people .082 −.003 .703 −.237
5. I reveal naturally how I feel to others −.142 .032 .683 .097
4. I enjoy knowing new friends .039 −.005 .585 .001
1. I am relaxed and comfortable when speaking to stranger(s) .000 −.047 .545 −.078
21. I keep watch for the other person’s feelings .066 .059 −.147 −.047
6. It is difficult to find the right word to express myself .022 .034 −.076 .719
7. I can express myself clearly while interacting with others .119 .029 −.039 .663
8. I always have a lot of facial expression while telling something to others .193 −.147 .120 .548
2. In most social situations I feel tense and insecure −.154 .127 −.125 .254
Note: Pattern coefficients with values less than .40 on each factor are in bold type.

understand when listening to others. Factor 2, social relaxation skill, consists of four items that evalu-
ate one’s anxiety level while interacting with strangers or new surroundings. Factor 3, empathy skill,
consists of four items that evaluate the ability to understand and share another’s emotional state.
Factor 4, expressiveness skill, consists of three items that evaluate one’s competence of communicat-
ing feelings through skilful use of verbal and nonverbal expressions. The items of four factors along
with communalities (h2 ), means and standard deviations of the measured variables are presented in
Table 3. For convenience, all items were renumbered according to the factor that corresponds.
Further, scores obtained from the 15-item ICCI had an ordinal alpha of .83. The internal consistency
estimates for the individual subscales ranged from .70 (empathy skill) to .78 (expressiveness skill). All

Table 3. Rotated factor pattern for the ICCI, communalities, Cronbach’s alpha, means and standard deviations.
Factor
Items 1 2 3 4 h2 M SD
LIS1. In conversations with friends, I know what topics we talk about .779 −.015 −.065 −.011 .65 3.46 .92
LIS2. I listen carefully to others during a conversation .591 −.006 .042 .042 .58 3.40 1.00
LIS3. I give positive feedback while others talked to me .527 .023 .184 −.030 .54 3.40 1.02
LIS4. I show an interest on the conversations in most occasions .472 .026 −.011 .173 .49 3.45 .96
SOC1. It is not difficult for me to get along well with new people .102 .712 .001 −.186 .63 2.67 .96
SOC2. I reveal naturally how I feel to others −.151 .640 .026 .169 .61 2.88 .92
SOC3. I enjoy knowing new friends −.007 .547 .016 .092 .49 2.88 .92
SOC4. I am relaxed and comfortable when speaking to stranger(s) .040 .535 −.072 −.048 .47 2.60 .97
EMP1. While talking to others I always think about how they feel .013 −.130 .666 −.006 .57 3.48 .99
EMP2. I don’t pay much attention to what others are feeling .010 .106 .613 −.031 .55 3.32 .96
EMP3. I can put myself in another person’s shoes while discussing .053 −.071 .533 .010 .50 3.42 .96
EMP4. I am sensitive to the needs and feelings of the other person −.024 .173 .451 .052 .45 3.26 .97
EXP1. It is difficult to find the right word to express myself −.053 −.077 .057 .764 .69 3.33 .96
EXP2. I can express myself clearly while interacting with others .079 −.030 .052 .668 .66 3.22 .95
EXP3. I always have a lot of facial expression while telling something to .132 .103 −.113 .584 .62 3.33 .94
others
Ordinal Alpha .77 .73 .70 .78
Abbreviations: LIS: listening skill; SOC: social relaxation skill; EMP: empathy skill; EXP: expressiveness skill.
Note: Pattern coefficients with values of .40 or greater are in bold type.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 393

values obtained the benchmark of .70, suggesting that all subscales scores had acceptable reliability
(Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). To conclude, the results provided preliminary evidence for a four-factor
structure and internal consistency of the ICCI.

Study 2: CFA
The results from Study 1 provided evidence for a four-factor model of ICCI scores. Our aim in Study 2
was to see whether, and to what extent the same factor structure would be found in a second sample
of college students. A CFA was carried out on the second sample to provide further evidence for this
four-factor measurement structure.

Method
Participants
For the same colleges as Study 1 (but from different classes), a total of 614 questionnaires were admi-
nistered, and of these a total of 49 missing data were excluded. Among the valid sample (n = 593),
44% (n = 259) of the participants were male and 56% (n = 334) were female students. The students’
ages ranged from 20 to 26 years, with a mean of 22.5 (SD = 2.01), and the proportion of first year to
fourth year students was 27.7%, 41.0%, 21.2% and 10.1%, respectively.

Measures
The questionnaire consisted of the same demographic questionnaire used in Study 1 and the 15-item
ICCI. Based on Study 1, the inventory has four subscales, listening skill (four items), social relaxation
skill (four items), empathy skill (four items) and expressiveness skill (three items). In addition, the ICCS
(Rubin & Martin, 1994) was adopted for checking the criterion-related validity of ICCI scores.
The ICCS is a brief, global, self-report measure of 10 interpersonal communication skills. It consists
of 30 items using a Likert scale, ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). Each of the 10
dimensions (self-disclosure, social relaxation, supportiveness, expressiveness, empathy, assertiveness,
environmental control, interaction management, altercentrism and immediacy) contains three items.
The 30-item scale had an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .86, showing internal consistency and was pre-
viously found to be related to both communication and cognitive communication flexibility (Rubin &
Martin, 1994). It is a valid and reliable instrument and has been used in numerous communication
competence studies. Three of the 10 subscales are conceptually similar to components of ICCI. There-
fore, we only choose the three corresponding subscales of the ICCS for this study: ‘social relaxation’,
‘empathy’ and ‘expressiveness’. Before administering to the participants, the three subscales were
translated into Chinese by two experienced and professional translators, who had good language
skills in both English and Chinese.

Procedure and data analysis

The procedures used for obtaining consent, participation and administration were similar to those of
Study 1. Analyses were performed by means of SPSS 22.0 and LISREL 8.70. As in Study 1, the data were
also checked for missing information and violation of normality. As a result, about 3% data were
excluded and all variables used in the analyses met the assumptions for normality (the values of
skewness ranged from −.60 to .20 and values of kurtosis ranged from −.64 to .35). As all variables
are normally distributed, any departures from multivariate normality are usually inconsequential
(Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). Therefore, the current data set may be treated as
multivariate normal which satisfies an important assumption of CFA.
The four-factor model derived from EFA was first validated with the second sample. Further, for
determining whether another structure had a more acceptable fit, the hypothesised four-factor
model was compared with three competing models. The parameters were estimated by means of
maximum likelihood using LISREL 8.70. Multiple indices of fit were used to assess model fit. As the
394 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

x2 statistic is sensitive to sample size (Byrne, 2001), other goodness-of-fit indices are suggested to
help the model evaluation (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Joreskog & Sorbom, 1996), including Good-
ness-of-Fit Index (GFI), Standardised Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), Root Mean Square Error
of Approximation (RMSEA), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Expected
Cross-validation Index (ECVI). Table 4 presents the optimal values for these indices.
The ordinal coefficient alpha was also calculated for confirming internal consistency. And for con-
firming reliability and convergent validity of the ICCI scores, the composite reliability of all latent con-
structs and factor loadings of each item were computed. The former should exceed the
recommended value .70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) and the latter should be greater than .50
and statistically significant (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1992). Furthermore, the criterion-
related validity of the ICCI was evaluated based on the relations between the ICCI and ICCS subscale
scores.
As to the test of measurement invariance across gender, the configural invariance (Model 1) was
first established by allowing all parameters to be freely estimated for male (n = 259) and female
groups (n = 334). A sequence of models with increasingly more restrictive constrains for two
groups was then tested: equal factor loadings (Model 2), equal error variances (Model 3) and equal
factor variances/covariances (Model 4). With each more restrictive model, x2 values were monitored
to detect for significant changes with each added set of constraints. No significant change in x2 indi-
cates that an invariance hypothesis should not be rejected. Additionally, due to the fact that x2 is
always affected by the sample size, examination of the change in CFI is an alternative criterion to
tests of invariance (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002). A value of CFI difference <.01 supports the perform-
ance of other invariance tests (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002).

Results
We performed a CFA to test the stability of scores from the 4-factor, 15-item ICCI. As described above,
the assumption of multivariate normality of the variables for performing CFA was checked and met.
Taking into account the ordinal nature of the data, the following analyses were all based on the poly-
choric correlation matrix to avoid obtaining biased parameter estimates (Finney & DiStefano, 2006).
The hypothesised four-factor model derived from EFA in Study 1 consisted of four first-order latent
variables representing the following four subscales: listening skill, social relaxation skill, empathy skill
and expressiveness skill. Table 4 reports the summary of fit indices from CFA. As presented, the set of
fit indices was within the recommended cut-off values, suggesting that the data were well fit by the
four-factor model derived from EFA.
Moreover, the four-factor model was compared with three competing models for determining
whether another structure had a more acceptable fit. One competing model consisted of one first-
order latent variable, with all 15 items as indicators of the variable (Competing Model A). The
second one consisted of four first-order latent variables representing the four subscales and one
second-order latent variable representing the total ICCI score (Competing Model B). The last one
was the bifactor model proposing that all items load on a general factor as well as on four uncorre-
lated factors (Competing Model C). The four models are illustrated with Figure 1. As shown in Table 4,
the results indicated that for Competing Model A of the fit indices were not acceptable and that the

Table 4. Summary of fit indices from CFA.

Model Chi-square df GFI SRMR RMSEA NNFI CFI ECVI
Optimal values – – >.90 <.08 <.08 >.90 >.90
Hypothesised model 361.83 84 .92 .054 .075 .94 .95 .73
Competing Model A 1355.87 90 .77 .11 .15 .78 .81 2.39
Competing Model B 368.74 86 .92 .057 .075 .94 .95 .74
Competing Model C 302.56 75 .92 .055 .072 .91 .93 .66
Note: ECVI: lower values indicate better fit.
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 395

Figure 1. Competing models.

hypothesised model, Competing Models B and C showed obviously improved fit. It could be noted
that, except the Model A, all discussed models reached an acceptable level of fit. Specifically, the
higher order model and bifactor model yielded the similar degree of model fit as the four-factor
model (the hypothesised model). Due to our concern with the hypothesised model, further analyses
were limited to it.
396 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

Table 5. Descriptive statistics of items and construct.

Composite
Item/factor Factor loading Ordinal alpha reliabilities
Listening skill (M = 3.45, SD = .76) .81 .81
LIS1 .75
LIS2 .73
LIS3 .74
LIS4 .65
Social relaxation skill (M = 2.77, SD = .69) .75 .75
SOC1 .66
SOC2 .59
SOC3 .68
SOC4 .70
Empathy skill (M = 3.38, SD = .70) .72 .73
EMP1 .63
EMP2 .59
EMP3 .72
EMP4 .59
Expressiveness skill (M = 3.34, SD = .76) .77 .77
EXP1 .75
EXP2 .62
EXP3 .81
Whole scale (M = 3.23, SD = .52) .84

We proceeded to evaluate the psychometric properties of the instrument in terms of reliability and
convergent validity. As shown in Table 5, the ordinal coefficients alpha for the ICCI scores (total, lis-
tening skill, social relaxation skill, empathy skill and expressiveness skill) were .84, .81, .75, .72 and .77,
respectively. The composite reliability of all latent constructs (ranged from .73 to .81) exceeded the
benchmark of .70. Furthermore, an examination of the output, in the hypothesised four-factor model,
indicated that the range of factor loadings of items on their respective constructs was .59–.81. Also, all
of the t-values of items showed statistical significance at the .05 level (13.75 < t < 21.50, omitted), indi-
cating that all of those items within each subscale were highly correlated with each other and, there-
fore, revealed convergent validity. In sum, all constructs in the model had adequate reliability and
convergent validity.
Furthermore, we used the ICCS as a criterion for checking the criterion-related validity of the ICCI.
As expected, the four ICCI factors (listening skill, social relaxation skill, empathy skill and expressive-
ness skill) were significantly and positively correlated with subscales of ICCS (social relaxation,
empathy and expressiveness), as shown in Table 6. The criterion-related validity was illustrated.
For the purpose of the current study, invariance tests of configuration, factor loading, error var-
iance and variance/covariance were completed. Results of invariance testing are presented in
Table 7. With each more restrictive model, the values of x2 and CFI from the analyses did not
show significant changes. The results revealed that the four models reflecting different degrees of
invariance were acceptable. In summary, the measurement invariance across gender was demon-
strated, suggesting that the ICCS performed similarly for both male and female students

General discussion
The present study aimed to develop and test the psychometric properties of a self-report instrument.
This instrument was developed in order to aid higher education researchers, as well as academic
faculty, in assessing college students’ interpersonal communication competence. Especially, by the
instrument, counsellors could identify students’ communication barriers to counselling and sub-
sequently direct much attention and efforts towards addressing these barriers. Drawing upon
earlier studies from the interpersonal literature and suggestions from students, faculty and
experts, items for the ICCI were crafted to reflect key aspects of interpersonal communication of
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 397

Table 6. The correlation between ICCI and ICCS.

ICCS
Factors Social relaxation Empathy Expressiveness
Listening skill .36** .42** .46**
Social relaxation skill .51** .44** .43**
Empathy skill .46** .49** .37**
Expressiveness skill .42** .36** .48**
ICCI .52** .51** .50**
**p < .01.

college students. Four factors emerged in EFA (n = 1336): listening skill, social relaxation skill, empathy
skill and expressiveness skill. These subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistencies and
this four-factor structure of 15-item ICCI was further cross-validated in a separate sample using
CFA (n = 593). Results showed that this four-factor structure provides an acceptable fit, confirming
the construct validity of the ICCI. Not surprisingly, the ICCI also showed significant positive corre-
lations with the existing scale – ICCS (Rubin & Martin, 1994), a dated but useful instrument for asses-
sing individual communication competence, thus providing additional evidence for its criterion-
related validity. Finally, the ICCI was found to be invariant across gender. The results attested the
measurement equivalence of the scale when administered to male and female students. This
ensures that the ICCI can be applied to make a comparison of male communication competence
with female.
The emergence of the four factors or subscales of communication competence from EFA and CFA
is also consistent with previous research (Bubas, 2003; Cupach & Spitzberg, 1981; Rubin & Martin,
1994; Spitzberg, 2007). Therefore, the four factors underlying the ICCI appear to be well aligned
with research of interpersonal communication competence. There are a few key features to highlight
regarding the ICCI. First, this new instrument was developed on the basis of important skills previous
researchers have commonly identified. Second, comprehensive psychometric tests were conducted
to ensure the reliability and validity of this instrument. Third, the ICCI is brief, both in the numbers of
factors and items, which makes it easy to administer and interpret. The ICCI appears to be an accurate
measure of students’ communicative abilities while interacting with others.
From these features, we can reasonably expect that counsellors, teachers and other college per-
sonnel will be able to counsel students regarding their communication competence by referring to
the scores obtained from the ICCI. For counselling purposes, college/university counselling centres
can apply the ICCI to their student clients which have communication deficit and may incorporate
the results of this administration to design programmes or provide interventions to complement
strengths and weaknesses of their clients. For example, programmes could be designed and provided
to assist students in improving interpersonal relationship by focusing on some communication skills.
Counsellors can counsel students to adopt some strategy while communicating with others such as
listening to the speakers, relaxing in social environment, showing empathy of others’ state and

Table 7. Model comparisons for measurement invariance across gender.

Model tested x2 (df) CFI Dx2 (Ddf) p ΔCFI Significance
Model 1 (configural invariance) 530.27 (168) .93
17.05 (11) .11 .01 N.S.
(2 vs. 1)
Model 2 (factor loading invariance) 547.32 (179) .92
20.10 (15) .17 .00 N.S.
(3 vs. 2)
Model 3 (factor loading, error variance invariance) 567.42 (194) .92
14.12 (10) .17 .00 N.S.
(4 vs. 3)
Model 4 (factor loading, error variance, variance/covariance 581.54 (204) .92
invariance)
398 Y.-C. HUANG AND S.-H. LIN

interacting expressively with others. ICCI can provide learning outcomes information on skill
improvement for interpersonal communication skills programmes or training. Moreover, in the class-
room, ICCI may be administered to identify the strengths and weaknesses of students’ abilities in
communication and then some curriculum or courses related to interpersonal communication
might be designed for enhancing students’ communication competence. Besides, after a period of
time ICCI may also be re-applied as an assessment measure for evaluating the effect of those
courses or intervention programmes for individual students.
Additionally, as Morreale et al. (2000) stress the ability to communicate effectively and appropri-
ately is learned and, therefore, the communication discipline should be viewed as central on college
campuses. We recommend that, in addition to instruction related to interpersonal communication
theory, students should also be given opportunities to practice interpersonal communication skills
in the classroom. Interpersonal communication skills can be taught more effectively when there is
a balance of theory and application (Morreale, Hugenberg, & Worley, 2006). In summary, the findings
of this study could provide counsellors and teachers with a useful instrument to understand students’
communication competence, and then they could further design useful programmes or conduct
effective interventions to assist students in improving interpersonal relationship.
One of the most significant concerns for college students today is their mental health. Unfortu-
nately, there is an increase in severe psychological problems (Drum, Brownson, Denmark, & Smith,
2009; Gallagher, Gill, & Sysko, 2000); college/university counselling centres must find ways to
address problems of students on campus. Here, we just focus on the topic of students’ interpersonal
relationships. This study provides insights into the factors of communication competence that may
contribute to the assessment of student’s ability in communication, and the help for counselling. We
suggest that some interventions should consider attempts to increase communication competence
skills to reduce student’s negative emotion such as loneliness and depression. However, there might
be other problems which are prevalent among the college student population to disturb students
and may lead to mental disorder, it is important to endeavour to gain a better understanding of
mental problems among college students.
Despite a number of interesting findings, some limitations of this study and directions for future
work warrant comment. First, the study only relies on student self-report. Social desirability may bias
the subjective communication competence. Future research with ICCI may benefit from including
some interview approaches. Second, since the participants in this study were college students, the
related findings cannot be generalised to individual of other ages or socioeconomic
backgrounds. Future studies need to be conducted to determine whether the psychometric
properties of this instrument can be generalised to general population samples. Third, in order to
have a compact instrument, the four facets do not exhaustively cover all important spheres of inter-
personal communication skills. It may be possible to develop a less compact but more
comprehensive instrument including additional communication skills. Fourth, the measurement
invariance of the scale across the gender or grade level is not explored and is worthy of further exam-
ination. Last, the ICCI is a Chinese language instrument and the present investigation used two inde-
pendent Chinese samples; therefore, the findings should not be generalised beyond Chinese samples
until the current findings have been replicated in samples from other countries or cultures. Future
research could translate ICCI into other languages and examining the cross-cultural validity of the
ICCI scores.
It is worth to notice that, from the cultural perspective, cultural differences have a great impact on
the judgement of competent communicative interaction (Bubas, 2001). Communication behaviours
or traits are found to be different between students of collectivistic cultures and individualistic cul-
tures (e.g. Taiwanese and Americans) (Hsu, 2004, 2007) and components of communication compe-
tence could have differences between non-Western and Western cultures (Bubas, 2001). Accordingly,
in the study, it is desired to include skills as far as possible to be universal. However, in some specific
social environments, different emphases may be placed on certain skills or traits (Bubas, 2001). There-
fore, it is possible that despite the generality of the elaborately selected skills in this study, somewhat
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING 399

different results would exist if the data were gathered on samples of different cultural setting. This
might be the shortcoming of the study and needs further research to investigate.
Notwithstanding the need for additional research on the measurement invariance of ICCI, we
expect that this instrument will become a useful tool for researchers. For example, one might
examine the relationship between interpersonal communication competence, as measured by the
ICCI, and respondents’ interpersonal frustration tolerance. It would be interesting and important to
investigate whether a person who is competent in interpersonal communications also has higher tol-
erance of interpersonal frustration.
In conclusion, this study introduces a carefully constructed instrument for assessing college stu-
dents’ competence on four communication skills. Initial evidence supports the reliability and validity
of the scores obtained from the 15-item ICCI. Given the demonstrated reliability and validity of the
ICCI, it is reasonable to recommend this instrument for future use as a research or diagnostic tool.
We expect that this new and compact tool will facilitate research investigations involving student’s
communication competence.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the participants in this study and Rubin and Martin for their permissions to use the
ICCS.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Yun-Chen Huang is an associate professor in the Department and Graduate School of Accounting Information at the
National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. She has a Master’s degree in applied mathematics.
Her research interests include student retention, student engagement, student decision-making and self-assessment.
Shu-Hui Lin is a professor in the Department of Insurance and Finance at the National Taichung University of Science and
Technology, Taiwan. She has a doctorate in statistics. Her research mainly focuses on statistical methodology, statistical
applications, college student education, psychology and counselling.

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