Management by Objectives: Authentic Assessment in a Public Relations Practicum.

Incorporation of management principles in the classroom can motivate students to successfully complete project work. The Communication Arts Department at Georgia Southern University developed a Public Relations Event Management course in which the students were responsible for planning a campus-wide special event to raise funds for two clients. Five methods were used to measure the effectiveness of the course: comparison of student-established event objectives to actual results; student evaluations; participant evaluations; peer evaluations; and a focus group interview among the students in the class. Results indicated that combining the primary management functions (planning and decision making, organizing, leading and controlling) and the R-A-C-E formula (research, action planning, communication and evaluation) can increase the application of critical thinking skills in the classroom. Further, authentic assessment and management by objectives can provide educators with techniques to measure the success of the project work. (Contains nine references and one table of data). (Author/RS)