Promoting Employer Desired Competencies through a Multiphased "Workgroup" Project
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Ashly Bender Smith
Department of General Business and Finance Sam Houston State University Corresponding Author: Ashly Bender Smith, [email protected] |
Abstract
Employers and business leaders have long been advocating for the importance of career readiness skills like critical thinking/problem solving, information literacy, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, and oral/written communication (NACE, 2019; Partnership, 2008). While faculty and students see value in projects that develop these skills, such projects can be some of the most challenging to incorporate effectively into business courses (Chapman et al., 2010; Detmering & Johnson, 2012; Lee et al., 2016; Marks & O’Connor, 2013). This article reports on a multi-phase group project that aims to strengthen a selection of these employer-desired skills while ameliorating student concerns about the research process and group work by combing a collaborative process with individually graded major products. The project design provides students with opportunities to strengthen their interpersonal communication, teamwork, and information literacy skills. Through anonymous surveys, students (n=33) indicated a positive response to the project design and that they perceived improvement in their information literacy skills. They indicated less improvement in their interpersonal communication and teamwork skills, prompting some recommended adjustments to the workgroup project for more effective implementation in a business course.
Keywords: business communication; information literacy; teamwork; interpersonal communication; collaborative projects; research projects
Employers and business leaders have long been advocating for the importance of career readiness skills like critical thinking/problem solving, information literacy, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, and oral/written communication (NACE, 2019; Partnership, 2008). While faculty and students see value in projects that develop these skills, such projects can be some of the most challenging to incorporate effectively into business courses (Chapman et al., 2010; Detmering & Johnson, 2012; Lee et al., 2016; Marks & O’Connor, 2013). This article reports on a multi-phase group project that aims to strengthen a selection of these employer-desired skills while ameliorating student concerns about the research process and group work by combing a collaborative process with individually graded major products. The project design provides students with opportunities to strengthen their interpersonal communication, teamwork, and information literacy skills. Through anonymous surveys, students (n=33) indicated a positive response to the project design and that they perceived improvement in their information literacy skills. They indicated less improvement in their interpersonal communication and teamwork skills, prompting some recommended adjustments to the workgroup project for more effective implementation in a business course.
Keywords: business communication; information literacy; teamwork; interpersonal communication; collaborative projects; research projects
Preferred Citation:
Smith, A. B. (2021). Promoting employer desired competencies through a multiphased "workgroup" project. International Journal for Business Education, No. 162, 25 - 53.
Smith, A. B. (2021). Promoting employer desired competencies through a multiphased "workgroup" project. International Journal for Business Education, No. 162, 25 - 53.
