Using Journals to Improve Listening Behavior: An Exploratory Study

This article describes a study of journal keeping to focus business students' attention on their listening behaviors and the need for improvement. Guided by an instructor, 42 students wrote daily observations of their listening behaviors for 10 weeks. These observations were arranged into 10 prescribed general listening categories. Using content analysis procedures, two trained decoders identified content themes that were observed by more than half the students in 7 of the 10 general categories. The results demonstrated that the journal, combined with content analysis procedures, can be used successfully to identify students' listening behavior problems so that a targeted training regimen can be designed to address these deficiencies.