Abstract
As is well known, both employers and accrediting bodies have long argued for the value of strong business and communication skills, as demonstrated in survey after survey (AACSB International, 2020;National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2018). However, it is often challenging to create the conditions in a classroom, which by necessity can be an artificial environment, for students to acquire the expertise to confront real-world communication challenges. The classroom is by necessity an artificial environment, and there can be a disconnect between what is taught in business and professional communication courses and what the needs may be in business and industry. Teaching team communication is especially difficult (Cyphert et al., 2016). The typical assignments that depend on teamwork—including simulation exercises, role-plays, and case studies—may not, in fact, provide the authentic experiences needed for enhancing collaborative skills. Such a concern is one we continue to see expressed in the research, including previous articles published inBusiness and Professional Communication Quarterly(Townley, 2021).
The author of our lead article suggests that service-learning can represent a way to bridge this gap. In the project described here, students learned, practiced, and reflected on organizational, leadership, and interpersonal communication skills through developing and delivering a campaign to raise funds from a corporate partner for an nongovernmental organization. The project thus enabled students to contribute to their community in a meaningful way while enhancing their business and professional communication skills. The author also draws on workplace assessment methods defined byYu (2010)—longitudinal, contextualized, learning-focused, and collaborative assessment—to validate the students’ learning and achievement. Thus, the research design presented in this article offers a model for how to conceptualize a successful and authentic service-learning experience for business and professional communication classes.
Our second article in this issue addresses the question of whether language features play a role in instructor assessment of student writing, using case study analyses as the site of investigation. The authors found that lexical sophistication had a positive impact on scores, whereas error rate was a negative predictor, even though language features were not included in the evaluation criteria. They conclude by making an argument that all evaluation criteria should be explicit.
The authors of our third article also address student writing assessment. Business letters were evaluated by both an instructor and a business professional. The evaluators judged content and organization at the same level, but the faculty group rated the letters lower on mechanics and the business professionals were more concerned with professionalism. This disparity, to my mind, raises questions about the values we as teachers might assign to surface errors, as opposed to the overall objective of a business document.
We close this issue with the first installment of our popular series “My Favorite Assignment.” Part 1 includes 13 selections presented at the 2020 Association for Business Communication annual conference, held online. The second installment will follow in September.