A comparative study on how academicians and industries rate students’ persuasive presentations.

• Main Author: Abdul Latif @ Bapoo, Lilisuriani
• Format: Proceeding Paper
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: PE English
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/84474/1/DELL%20PG%20SYMPOSIUM%202016.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/84474/7/ABSTRACT%20DELL%20PG%20SYMPOSIUM%202016.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/84474/

Employers often stress the importance of graduates having good business communication skills. Consequently, various communication courses have been provided by Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to meet the industrial demands. Nevertheless, graduates’ abilities to communicate are often said to be below the industries’ expectations. An investigation was therefore deemed necessary to see how both academicians and the industry players actually perceive and rate graduates’ communication skill which is in this case, their abilities to present persuasively. 3 batches of students from a faculty who took a persuasive and speech communication course in 3 different semesters were involved in this study. Their presentations were rated using a scale that was developed to rate the specific persuasive appeals of content, credibility and emotion. The data was then analyzed using ANOVA to identify if there was a significant difference in the mean score of the ratings given by both the academicians and industry players. Findings show that, there is no statistically significant difference in the overall mean score for the ratings given by both academicians and the industry for 2 out of the 3 batches of students. However, based on the significance value for each appeal investigated on all 3 batches, the industry representatives tend to expect students to show more credibility while academicians had higher expectations on content and emotion. It is concluded that while academicians and the professionals from the industry can agree on the general persuasive communication skills of the graduates, their expectations on the specific aspects of the persuasive presentation tend to differ. In this matter, it is suggested that detailed discussions between academicians and industries are frequently held to minimize any mismatch of expectations. More studies need to be done on the specific business communication skills expected by the industry.