Date of Award

6-2008

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Dr. Chad Edwards

Second Advisor

Dr. Richard Gershon

Third Advisor

Dr. Jennifer Machiorlatti

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

More than two billion people around the world have adopted mobile phones for communication. Interpersonal communication research has found that communication competence is an essential human need required to fulfill interpersonal objectives to achieve physical and psychological satisfaction (Spitzberg and Cupach, 1984), however, mobile phone communication competence has yet to be studied. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a new scale designed to measure Mobile Phone Communication Competence (MPCC); a principal component factor analysis uncovered the structure and dimensionality of the MPCC measure. The results from the factor analysis in this study identified six constructs: asynchronous communication, willingness to use, feature selection, comfort with technology, communicator competence and communicator affect. The relationship of the constructs in the MPCC measure is synthesized in a three-step process of mobile phone communication competence: initiation, interaction and outcome. The MPCC scale and process of communication competence aid researchers to identify areas of users' mobile phone communication competence, furthermore, the process of MPCC creates a framework for future discourse and research.

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