Issues in communication flow in the University of Cape Coast

Abstract

The study considered discovering issues in communication flow in higher educational institutions with particular reference to the University of Cape Coast. The purpose of the research was to bring to light the general perception of the internal publics of the University of Cape Coast on communication in the institution. It also sought to identify the kinds of formal and informal channels of communication, the medium of communication used and its effectiveness, as well as impediments to information flow. The descriptive survey method was adopted with a sample size of 378, comprising 20 senior members (non-teaching), 107 senior members (teaching), 65 senior staff, 151 junior staff, and 35 student leaders. The questionnaire and interviews were the main instruments employed to collect data from the respondents. A return rate of 95.8% was achieved for the questionnaires administered. The main methods used in analyzing the data were frequency and simple percentage distributions. The major findings were that information is communicated amongst the internal publics mostly through notice boards, bulletins and memoranda, and semantic problems, poor listening habits, mistrust, poor human relations, faulty communication equipments, serve as major barriers to information flow. Some recommendations made were that the office of the Dean of student affairs must occasionally organize planned fora for students to give updates on pertinent issues in the university, noise in the communication process must be reduced to the barest minimum, beauraucracy and red-tap ism should be minimized as much as possible and communication equipments should be regularly maintained to reduce breakdown in information flow.