AN EVALUATION OF THE COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND EMPATHIC TENDENCIES OF STUDENTS ATTENDING POLICE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The purpose of this study is to find out whether Police Vocational School of Higher Education students comprehend the duties and responsibilities of being a police correctly and practice what has to be done through correct methods within this context; to evaluate their empathy tendencies and communication skills; to find solutions if they have any shortcomings in communication skills; to make up for their shortcomings in showing empathy or to strengthen their existing skills. The study included a total of 909 students attending Samsun 19 Mayıs Police Vocational School of Higher Education. Of these 909 students, 207 (45,6%) females and 247 (54,4%) males were in their first year while 252 (55,4%) males and 203 (%44,6) females were in their second year. The data was collected through a 25-item 5 likert scale developed by Korkut (1996) in order to understand how individuals evaluate their communication skills. The scale is scored from (1) never to (5) always. To find out empathy tendencies, Empathic Tendencies Scale developed by Dökmen (1988) was used. The scale is a Likert type scale; it includes 20 questions which are scored from 1 to 5. The lowest score a person can get from the scale is 20 while the highest score is 100. Frequency percentage was used to find out the age distribution of the group. Mean and standard deviation were used to present the group’s communication skill levels and independent groups t-test was used to present the state of differentiation based on gender, age and question factor. General communication skills of the research group were below the average communication level score while their empathy tendencies were high. There were significant differences in communication levels in terms of their year of study, gender and their department at high school (P<0,05). As a result, studies of individual development in the education of professional groups which are interlocked with humans will enable an increase in communication, correct management of communication processes, developments in overcoming deficiencies and having mutual common sense.