Using Real-World Standards to Enhance Students' Presentation Skills

In countless surveys, employers, graduate students, academicians, and others continue to list oral and written communication among the most critical skills needed by business students today (Hynes & Bhatia, 1996; Maes, Weldy, & Icenogle, 1997; Plutsky, 1996; Wardrope, 2002). The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International (2004) continues to recognize the importance of communication skills in its latest standards. Not surprisingly, Wardrope (2002) found that a communication course was required at 76% of the institutions surveyed. The debate is not about the value of a business communication course but about its effectiveness. It seems critical to decipher how best to teach the necessary communication skills to business students to meet real-world standards. This article describes the efforts of a small, Midwest university to enhance the effectiveness of its business communication course by adopting such standards to gauge the oral presentation skill mastery of its students. (Contains 3 tables.)