Assessing Students' Need for Skills in Communication and Teamwork

ABSTRACT Communication skills of senior‐level students in a natural resources and environmental studies course were analyzed to determine methods by which they and successive students might improve their technical communication skills. Students were inadequately prepared in several areas of technical communication, such as report writing, making oral presentations, interviewing, managing small groups, managing conflict, and designing visual aids; the students appeared to be frustrated by their inadequate skills. They also seemed to lack team‐building skills. The recommendations of a technical communication consultant for improving students' communication skills were to provide team‐building instruction; require a technical‐report writing course as a prerequisite for this capstone course titled Natural Resources and Environmental Studies; provide technical communication and social research references, style manuals, and appropriate word‐processing manuals; allow word‐processing program options; require computer literacy; create a guide for correcting common writing errors; and contract a technical communicator.