The Assessment of Active Listening Skills in Helpline Volunteers Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • This research attempted to determine if the active listening skills of helpline volunteers are improved through training and maintained after training and if the assessment tool currently used by helplines to objectively measure active listening skills, the Crisis Center Discrimination Index (CCDI; Delworth, Rudow, & Taub, 1972), is a valid measure. The lack of significant correlations between CCDI scores and supervisor ratings of active listening skills does not support the CCDIs validity. When the CCDI was altered so that the volunteers ranked responses to a caller instead of rated them, moderate correlations between CCDI scores and supervisor ratings resulted. In this form, scores on the CCDI improved with training. This indicates that active listening skills improve with training. Although scores on the CCDI did not change significantly from immediately after training to a follow-up period, supervisor ratings of active listening skills increased significantly, indicating that active listening skills improve with experience on helplines.

published proceedings

  • Journal of Loss and Trauma

author list (cited authors)

  • PAUKERT, A., STAGNER, B., & HOPE, K.

citation count

  • 14

complete list of authors

  • PAUKERT, AER||STAGNER, BRIAN||HOPE, KERRY

publication date

  • January 2004