Factors influencing the effectiveness of communication skills training: programme contents outweigh teachers' skills

Although more and more time and money are being spent on communication skil ls training, little is known about which factors influence the effectivenes s of these programmes. The present study was conducted to shed some light o n this issue. Students' perceptions of the learning effect of an extensive communication skills training programme are assessed using a questionnaire, administered to two consecutive classes. Using learning effect reported by the students as dependent variable, contributions of various aspects of th e programme to the learning effect were analysed. The results show that mor e than half of the variance in the learning effect was explained by the con tent of the programme, with only 5% of the remaining variance being explain ed by the didactic skills of the teachers.