Assessing Japanese Interpersonal Communication Competence

Abstract

The assessment of interpersonal communication competence in Japan has been traditionally done through translated versions of mainly Western-made scales, devised on the Western cultural definition of competence. A review of the more commonly used scales revealed that cultural bias in these translated scales has rendered them as having lower levels of concurrent validity. The purpose of this study was to devise a scale for assessing the communication skills that have been accepted as being more or less typical of Japanese. A 31-item scale, named the Japanese Interpersonal Competence Scale (JICS) was constructed and administered to 707 subjects of all age ranges to determine the structure of Japanese interpersonal communication competence. The factors of Perceptive Ability, Self-Restraint, Social Appropriateness, Interpersonal Sensitivity and Tolerance for Ambiguity were revealed. Validity and reliability tests showed that JICS is a promising instrument for the assessment of competence.