A Study of Cross-Cultural Communication of Postgraduate Students in Universiti Utara Malaysia: Focus on Communication Style

This research project reported the results of the analysis conducted on data collected form 90 full time postgraduate students of UUM. The Study examined the relationship of communication styles among different cultural communities of postgraduate student in UUM. Analyzed their academic performance and affect of communication style on CGPA. In addition, the demographic factors of age, gender, marital status and program of study was investigated to determine their impact on students' communication style. The variable of students' communication style, which was examined, included friendly, impression leaving, relaxed, contentious, attentive, animated, dramatic, open, dominant and communicator image. The variables comprised the domain of a communicator style construct. Five research questions were examined:
1. To identify the relationships between communication styles and different cultural communities in UUM.
2. To analyze how working experience of student affect the communication style in UUM.
3. To examine the effect of culture on academic performance (CGPA) of postgraduate students in UUM.
4. To analyze the effect of ten dimensions of communicaton styles on CGPA.
5. To analyze communication style between different demographic segments.
This study was conducted on a sample of 90 postgraduate students who Complete Communicator Style Measure questionnaire each instrument was scored and collated with the demographic variables in a student's data set. All 90 students data sets were subjected for a series of statistical analysis to conclude the determination of each null hypothesis. The major finding of this study was the impact of communicator style variable of Contentious and Dramatic on Cultural community variable. These two variables explained 15.50 per cent of Cultural community variable. The communication style variable of Dramatic and Friendly explained 13.50 per cent of the dependent variable of working experience. Dramatic also had a major impact on academic performance of students in UUM. There was no significance found among age groups, gender, marital status and program of study and the communication style variable of Friendly, Impression leaving, Relaxed, Contentious, Attentive, Animated, Dramatic, Open, Dominant and Communicator Image in UUM.