This study investigates the meaning of communication skills from employers' perspectives. Students enrolled in a business communication course were asked to contact potential employers in their fields of interest, requesting information about important communication skills in those fields. Using content analysis, two coders familiar with business communication analyzed 52 of the resulting open-ended responses. The analysis of 165 skills suggests employers recall oral communication more frequently than written, visual, or electronic communication skills. Of oral communication subskills, interpersonal communication was mentioned more than other workplace communication skills.
I wish to thank many people for their assistance in helping to make my thesis a reality. First, I would like to thank Dr. Rebecca Burnett for her patient understanding of my questions and ideas, and mentoring my progress through the years. I would like to thank Dr. David Wallace, who has provided many hours of support and advice. His input will long be remembered. I also wish to thank Dr. Michael Mendelson for his help in providing vital learning community material for my study, and Dr. Corly Brooke for her insight into learning communities and her aid in creating my survey. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Lee Honeycutt for his help with the online version of my survey and the many teachers who participated in my study. A special thanks goes to my spouse Jan who has supported me in my endeavors and my daughter Mikayla whose insistence on being a five-year old kept me grounded in certain realities of life, A special thanks also goes to my father who was unable to see me complete my schooling, but knows I have finished. CHAPTER 1: LEARNING COMMUNITY ISSUES AND PROBLEMS "I like the simplefact that I have some ofmy classes with the same people every day, and I can lookforward to seeing those samepeople whenever I need to. IfI should need, to ask a question about a class orform a studygroup, it's really easy to do when the same people are in a couple ofyour classes and are going through the same conflicts as you are. " Tammy (learning community student in agriculture) In recent years, American colleges and universities have paid increased attention to undergraduate education. As part of this attention, numerous efforts have been made to enhance the first-year college experience and keep retention high throughout each student's college years. Part of the reason for the increased interest in undergraduate education is public demand for more accountability by the schools and teachers as well as continued interest in improving both student learning and resulting outcomes. Recent years have produced extensive educational research about things such as how to actively engage students, how individual and group knowledge is constructed, and how alternative assessments can be designed (Bruffee 1993, Caine and Caine 1997, Tinto 1996), so students are able to retain more meaningful, usable knowledge and are actively engaged in learning. Students at commuter colleges, community colleges, and large universities feel a need to be connected to their learning and develop a sense of community with other students as well as with the campus as a whole. Additionally, many interested teachers also wish to connect with their students and create opportunities for students to connect to course material. Making meaningful connections to course content is made difficult by a number of factors, including large lecture classes. While many schools still rely on lectures for delivering course material, large lecture classes hmit options for more active learning to take place and limit potential for both students and teachers to become better c...
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