The relationship between listening knowledge and academic performance among nursing students of the university of Calabar, Nigeria

Listening is an essential component of effective communication. Listening requires attention and practice to analyze and organize sounds into recognizable patterns, interpret the patterns and infer meaning to messages communicated. This descriptive study determined the relationship between listening knowledge and academic performance among nursing students of the University of Calabar. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and twenty (120) participants from 200 level class with a population of 220 students. Self-reporting questionnaire was used to collect listening knowledge information while academic performance information was retrieved from participants’ academic records. Listening knowledge and barrier checklists used confirmed participants’ knowledge. Socio-demographic data were analyzed using SPSS version 22 and reported in frequencies and percentages while Pearson Moment Product Coefficient determined the relationship between listening knowledge and academic performance. Socio-demographic characteristics findings showed participants to be within the age ranges of 25-31years (30.00%) and 32-38years (29.17%), 90 (75.0%) were females, 88 (73.33%) were generic students with 32 (26.67%) direct entry. Participants had high listening Knowledge with a mean and SD of20.45±5.24 but failed to identify 4 key listening barrier issues. Listening knowledge and Academic performance findings revealed a negative correlation, indicating, a weak relationship since value is nearer to zero (calr-value = -0.0204, crir-value = 0.178, df = 118, P>0.05) thus accepted the null hypothesis. It was concluded that Listening is essential for successful academic performance that must be emphasized during nurse education training.