Eureka! Institutional Repository

Previous studies in Greece have largely demonstrated the importance of communication in educational institutes. However, only limited data exist both for the importance of communication and the communication errors are observed in the Public Institutes of Vocational Training(P.I.V.T).In this survey, the views and experiences of 151 adult trainers employed in Central Macedonia's (P.I.V.T)in connection with communication were investigated.The analysis showed that the trainers on a scale from 1 to 5, which correspond to nothing at all to very much, consider their communication with the administration department very important and positive (mean 4,30). They consider it very important to communicate with the director (mean 4.71)as with the deputy director (mean 4.56), while they believe that both the director (mean 4.43) and the deputy director (mean 4.25) have very high communication skills. They also believe that the director's communication skills contribute greatly (mean 4.70) in the most effective administration of the educational organization, while found to have strong positive correlation (r=0.527 p<0.01) with harmonious communication between the members of the administration department. It also seems that the means and conditions for achieving communication between the members of the P.I.V.T. are very much in place (mean 4.13), with e-mail, phone and personal contact to be the most common means of communication between P.I.V.T. and trainers. Indeed, the Spearman analysis showed a positive strong correlation between the assistant director's communication skills and the media efficiency of the P.I.V.T.(r=0.518p<0.01).The instructors indicate that they are affected sufficiently to very much (mean 3.59) of the non verbal messages emitted by the director with women being statistically more affected than men (p=0.027),while on the contrary menbelieve with a significant difference from women (p=0.002) that the manager is a good listener. In the view of the trainers, communication affects the climate prevailing in the the P.I.V.T., while at the same time it seems that the director is very interested (mean 4.39) to achieve a good communication climate. The failure of the administration to respond to an oral request of a trainer with a reporting rate of 34,4% , the skip of reading by the instructors of an important email from the P.I.V.T.(29,1%),the failure of the administration to inform the trainers for a class that was cancelled (17,2%) and at the same percentage (14,6%), both inappropriate behavior by a member of the administration, and the authorization for a trainee for early withdrawal from the course because it falsely informed permission given by the administration to the same, are the most common communication errors mentioned. The communication skills of the deputy director, the harmonious communication between the members of the administration, but also the effectiveness of the means of communication, are the factors which are associated more with the communication errors. There was also a strong trend in inappropriate behaviour towards women (19%) versus men (9%) by members of the administration department.