Improving officer-soldier communication through active listening skills training with Army ROTC cadets

Andrea Bjornestad; Seth Olson; Lee Weidauer

doi:10.1080/08995605.2021.1902179

Improving officer-soldier communication through active listening skills training with Army ROTC cadets

Mil Psychol. 2021 Apr 14;33(3):205-215. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2021.1902179. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Andrea Bjornestad¹, Seth Olson², Lee Weidauer³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Counseling and Human Development, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota.
² Division of Counseling and Psychology in Education, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota.
³ Department of Health and Nutritional Sciences, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota.

Abstract

Military leaders are tasked with communicating effectively with their subordinates. Active listening skills are vital to this communication; however, an investigation of active listening skills in the military is lacking. Sixty-four Army ROTC cadets participated in a quasi-experimental study to determine the effectiveness of an active listening skills curriculum on developmental counseling. Self-report ratings suggested a positive treatment effect with the cadets in the experimental group from pretest to posttest on the sensing and processing subscales on the Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS), and both self-report and observer ratings demonstrated a positive treatment effect on the Counseling Skills Scale (CSS) when compared to the control group. The study provides initial evidence on the impact of implementing an active listening skills curriculum on leadership development within developmental counseling in the military.

Keywords: Active listening; communication; officer training.

Grants and funding

The research was funded by the US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (US Army ACC-APG-RTP) with federal award number: W911NF-2-0044. The study was approved for human subjects research by university IRB and US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. All data collected were coded for anonymity and stored on the first and second authors’ password-protected computers. Video provided no identifying information and all scenarios utilized were general situations. All participants were provided information and consent.