Communication skills improvement of Croatian graduate students: Krav Maga system as transcendent teaching platform

Mastering the achievement of a common message understanding, verbal or nonverbal, and the ability to persuade are very important learning outcomes in education of future media professionals but also future managers and leaders of all profiles. However, recent research on the quality of communication skills in public space regarding the mediation of information in crises has shown that non- verbal communication skills of media workers need to be improved. This paper aims to explore whether nonverbal and verbal communication skills can be improved, in the context of adopting the Krav Maga value system, skills and tactics that we identify as self- concept, situational awareness, ability to adapt to stressful situations, quick decision making under pressure, controlled aggression, visualization and verbal self-defense. In order to achieve the goal, a survey was conducted during March 2021. The deliberate sample consists of active athletes practicing Krav Maga self-defense system from a total of 22 countries (N = 98, F = 36). The research uses a quantitative methodological approach. A questionnaire was created which, in addition to general information on the respondents also collected information on Krav Maga values, skills and tactics, leadership qualities and communication skills. Data were processed by descriptive statistics procedures and appropriate nonparametric methods (one sample K-S test, Man-Whitney test, chi-square test - χ2 and Spearman’s Rho). The IBM SPSS Statistics version 27 statistical package was used. For the purposes of this paper, the results related to the self assessment of respondents’ communication skills improvement will be presented. Reliability analysis was performed on 7 measurement scales containing 32 and 30 particles, respectively, and calculated Cronbach’s’ α coefficients range between 0.90 and 0.94, which is an excellent value. The results of the chi-square test showed that the distribution of responses on the communication skills variable (V18) improvement due to Krav Maga training deviated statistically significantly from the distribution of responses that would be obtained at random distribution (p