Conclusions

From the responses given, Freshman (32 %) and Senior (28%) both had the highest responses to an improvement in communication. Although Sophomores ( 24%) and Juniors (16%) both experienced an improvement in communication. When looking at the difference between results in communication and negotiation, Seniors (60.9%) reported a greater improvement in negotiation than Freshman (8.7%), sophomores (21.7%), and juniors (8.7%). Freshman and Juniors reported the same percentages of improvement in negotiation. The differences in percentages were much greater when looking at purely negotiation improvement was a lot higher with seniors.
There was only two people who reported that their communication and negotiation skills did not improve at all.  After compiling our results, we found that there was a difference in between how freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors viewed communication and negotiation.  

It would be interesting to see with more participants in the future if people gave more detailed answers. Part of the difficulty with coding the data was the repetition of answers or answers that were incomplete. It was also hard to determine what comments were related to negotiation specifically or communication. In a lot of the responses, it seemed that participates combined the two ideas, so it would be interesting to have the questions separated to see if the results remained the same and seniors still commented on negotiation more than communication. With more information it would probably be easier to code the data and further split up themes that are related to negotiation. For example, they might say that being more open minded has improved their negotiation more than their communication. 

Research Question

Does classification affect communication and negotiation? 

We continued to work together for the remainder of the project. We chose this question because we believed that the higher classification an individual was affected their communication skills. Because most participants reported that they communication skills have improved since they entered college, we thought that the change was because of the differences one experiences between college and high school and as they advance in their college career. We wanted to look at if people who were upperclassman reported more positive outcomes related to communication and negotiation compared to those who were underclassman just entering college. We thought this question was important because typically people experience more freedom when they come to college. They become responsible for making their own choices as they get older which could relate to why they are having to communicate more and why the skills are developing. There are also more opportunities for leadership positions for an individual to come out of their shell and participate more on behalf of themselves. When the individual is away from their parents, they may have to look more to peers and those around them to ask for help and guidance. It forces them to communicate with more people than they had to before when they were still in high school. This helps the person become more comfortable with themselves and their ability to communicate with others.