Faculty perceptions of communication skills and needs of business school undergraduates in...

In Singapore in 2000, the government launched a Speak Good English Movement to improve English language skills and to limit the use of Singlish (a local variety of English) by promoting the use of (Standard) English among the general population. This campaign was motivated by government perception

Using a 40-item questionnaire, this study investigated whether faculty at a large Singapore business school shored similar perceptions of inadequate communication skills, in this case among undergraduates, and also sought to explain their perceptions. The findings indicate that the faculty perceived undergraduate communication skills to be in need of improvement, thus lending support to employer and government criticism. An analysis of survey responses revealed some probable underlying causes for faculty perceptions, including an apparent lack of real commitment to the improvement of such skills.

Keywords: Singlish, Standard English, faculty perceptions of student skills

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WITH WIDESPREAD USE OF ENGLISH as the international language of business, a workforce's ability to communicate effectively in English can give a non-native English-speaking country a competitive edge and attract lucrative foreign investment.

In Singapore, the ability to speak English is considered crucial to the country's future. Since the recent Asian financial crisis, the Singapore government has increasingly devoted much of its energies to developing the island-state as a regional knowledge-based hub with a highly skilled service sector proficient in English. These efforts have been motivated in large part by a realization that the country is no longer able to compete with its neighbors for low-cost labor-intensive manufacturing investment (Rubdy, 2001).

The Speak Good English Movement

Through the media, employers and the government have long expressed criticism of supposedly declining English language skills, warned of the consequential potential impact on the country's future competitiveness, and called for an improvement, particularly in graduates' English communication skills (Chua, 1990; Cutting Business, 1998; Goby, 1999; Rubdy, 2001; Tong, 1997).

More recently, the Singapore Prime Minister in his National Day Rally speech (McNulty, 2000) went so far as to voice his disapproval of the alleged promotion in the local broadcast media of Singlish (a local variety of English), warned of the resulting potential dangers of a decline in the level of Standard English, and stressed that effective English communication skills were the key to the push for a knowledge-based economy and international intelligibility (for a more detailed discussion of Singlish vs. Standard English in Singapore, see Rubdy, 2001).

Such criticism culminated in the recent government launch of a campaign for the Speak Good English Movement 2000, which seeks to promote the use of Standard English and raise the level of English proficiency among Singaporeans.

English in Singapore

English is one of four official languages in multi-ethnic Singapore, the others being Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. English is the dominant language, being used as the medium of education at all levels; the language of government, business, employment; and the lingua franca for inter-ethnic and often intra-ethnic communication. Bilingualism in Singapore essentially entails proficiency in English and in one of the other official languages, namely the language of one's ethnic group (Pakir, 1994).

It is generally understood that the government has promoted English as the dominant language in part to try to develop a national identity that is not biased towards one particular ethnic group (i.e., Chinese, Malay, or Indian). Some also attribute the dominance of English to the Singapore government's efforts to avoid the "linguistic nationalism of many post-colonial countries" and to promote English to ensure the country's political, economic, social, and cultural survival (Chew, 1999, p. 40).

The role of English in Singapore and the research environment it provides are unique. English is not the native or dominant language as it is in Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, the English language situation in Singapore differs to some degree from that in other countries in Asia and Africa that also have local varieties of English. In Singapore, unlike in those other countries, English is the dominant language, the local people have not exhibited any significant cultural objections to English, and the government has actively promoted English as the dominant language (see Goby, 1999; Pennycook, 1994; Rubdy, 2001).

Background of the Study

Admittedly, criticism about a lack of communication skills and concern about the need to improve them are not unique to Singapore. The same is true of countries where English is the native or dominant language, for example, in Australia and New Zealand (Clout, 1994; Dwyer, 1992; McLaren, 1990; White, 1993), and the US (Nelson, Moncada, & Smith, 1996; Plutzky, 1996; Willmington, 1989).

Although studies examining employer and faculty perceptions of student communication skills have been conducted before, little has been done in Singapore, where the linguistic context differs. Goby's (1999) survey of employers in Singapore revealed their perception that students needed to be better equipped in communication skills. Her results also indicate that her business communication colleagues spent much of their class time on students' English language skills.

The approach of the study reported here is complementary but different in that it investigated faculty perceptions of local students' communication skills in a large business school in Singapore. With their obvious ties to local business, business instructors are arguably in the best position of all to determine the types of communication skills necessary to succeed in the workplace and to judge whether students need to improve those skills.

Objectives of the Study

The general aims of the study were to discover whether business instructors shared both employer and government opinions of the need for an improvement in English communication skills and subsequently to report the study's findings to the business school in question in the hope that certain changes to the curriculum might be made.

The specific objectives of this study, restricting itself to the Singapore context, were to investigate, using a survey,

1. Business faculty perceptions of both the importance and possession of specific writing skills and oral skills for undergraduates

2. The amount of practice in and feedback on writing and oral skills that students receive, since this may well be related, among other factors, to their perceived possession of such skills.

Institutional and Demographic Context for the Study

The business school in question offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees and is part of a large university in Singapore. At the time of the study, the school had one core 14-week business communication course conducted in the form of tutorials (20 students per class), with two two-hour sessions per week. The course was required for all undergraduates in the Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Accountancy programs. All other core courses in the school's undergraduate programs were taught as a lecture for approximately 100 students plus one seminar (average class size of 20) per week.

The large majority of the undergraduate business school students were Singaporean, aged from 18 to 25. They were mostly non-native speakers of English, usually bilingual in English and the language of their ethnic group, though seldom with native-like fluency in both. Over 90 percent of the students were of Chinese ethnicity.

The school offered no other communication courses, and apart from business communication, no other writing-intensive courses or speech communication courses were required for graduation. In addition, no writing, learning skills, or ESL centers were available anywhere on the large university campus to help students with communication difficulties.

Survey Methodology

The study consisted of a questionnaire distributed to 245 instructors at the school, of whom 27 percent were female and 73 percent were male. A random sample of 140 instructors (56 percent of the population) from all divisions and ranks was selected. Business communication educators were excluded because their expertise in the field might have distorted and, therefore, not reflected the perceptions of business instructors generally. Instructors from all the departments within the school were represented in the sample (e.g., applied economics, accounting, banking and finance, business law, marketing, and the like.)

Development of the Questionnaire

The questionnaire was developed through many informal discussions with faculty. The skills are a compilation of those they believed students needed and/or had problems with. Some instructors strongly recommended that certain skills be included. For example, some were bothered by many students' tendency to use "he" and "his" when referring to people generally (see Appendix, question 3). The final questionnaire consisted of 40 questions divided into two main sections: writing and oral skills (see Appendix).

Faculty Responses

Although student skills differ depending on their level as students and students also differ from one another, the survey did not take those differences into account in its broad aim to determine perceptions. One might also argue that the instructors surveyed were neither qualified nor capable of evaluating communication skills. But again, the aim was to determine perceptions.

Based on their overall perceptions of the business undergraduates as a whole, respondents were asked to rate the importance of certain competencies and undergraduates' degree of possession of those competencies. Except for the "practice and feedback" subsections, five-point Likert scale response categories were used.

The "practice and feedback" subsections of the questionnaire attempted to discover the number of written assignments and oral presentations required of students and the amount of feedback students received. This allowed an examination of whether a relationship existed between the amount of practice and feedback students received and the perceived degree of possession of their communication skills. The types of written assignments varied from instructor to instructor and from course to course and included anything from an essay to a case study analysis or report. An open-ended question was also included to solicit faculty comments on ways to improve students' writing and oral skills and to ask instructors whether business communication should be the only course to improve such skills. In addition, respondents were asked to provide background information, namely, their gender, nationality, division, number of years at the business school, and teaching experience. To maintain confidentiality, respondents were no t asked to give their names.

Data Analysis

Ninety-six instructors responded, yielding a response rate of 69 percent. Means and standard deviations were calculated. In addition, ANOVA and independent t-tests were conducted to test for any differences among the background variables of instructors in their perceptions of the importance and undergraduate possession of communication skills.

Results

The following sections discuss the results of the survey concerning writing skills and oral presentation skills.

Importance and Possession of Writing Skills

The writing skills surveyed were ranked in descending order according to the magnitude of the difference in means between their perceived importance and possession (see Table 1). The skills were ranked this way to demonstrate those areas that needed most attention; as mentioned, one aim was to provide feedback on the results of the study to the business school itself.

For example, responses to "students are able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly" had the largest difference in the two mean values. Its importance had a mean of 4.76, while possession had a mean of 2.76. According to the respondents, this skill was deemed important, but the perception was that students only have average possession, suggesting that this is the area in need of greatest improvement.

The smallest gap was found for "students are non-discriminatory as regards gender in their writing." Its perceived importance had a mean of 3.51 while the mean for possession was 3.02, suggesting that the need for improvement is not crucial. The importance of the majority of writing skills were rated as somewhat important to important (4 to 5 on the 5-point Likert scale), while their possession was mostly in the range of below average to average (2 to 3 on the scale).

Some results can be easily explained. For example, 48 percent of respondents perceived undergraduates to be poor or below average in their ability to cite sources using a style format. This is hardly surprising as the school neither required that students followed any particular style format for their written assignments nor that they took a general writing course, which presumably would have stressed the importance of using a style manual.

Importance and Possession of Oral Skills

The means for the perceived importance and possession of the 12 oral communication components were also calculated and ranked according to the size of the difference between them (see Table 2).

As was the case for the writing skills surveyed, most of these oral components were also rated between somewhat important and important. Possession for the majority of oral competencies was rated as below average to average, similar again to the results for the writing skills.

The item with the largest difference in means was the same as that for writing skills, namely, "students express their ideas and thoughts clearly." Clearly, students need to improve in this area both orally and in their writing.

The purpose of this study was not specifically to investigate the use of Singlish, one reason being that many instructors might not know what constituted Singlish. However, a number of instructors had requested that an item be included that dealt with student use of Singlish in speech (see Appendix, question 29); some remarked that they believed that student use of this local variety of English sounded "unprofessional," or "made the speaker lose credibility," etc. However, the results in Table 2 suggest that the instructors generally did not view the student ability to avoid Singlish in speech as particularly important, compared to other survey items. This is not to say that the government's fear of the spread of Singlish is unfounded, but simply that this school's instructors did not appear to view its use, at least among the student body, as problematic or important as other competencies. Perhaps many students are able to monitor their speech and avoid the use of Singlish in more formal contexts, or possibl y some instructors are not able to recognize its use.

Somewhat predictably, grammatical correctness was considered relatively more important in writing than in oral communication (third highest mean among writing competencies yet only sixth among oral). Notably, possession of grammatical accuracy had the third highest mean among oral skills but only eighth in writing skills. Grammatical inaccuracy in speech is less noticeable since students can repeat, self-correct, and rephrase to clarify any ambiguities, whereas in writing, grammatical inaccuracies leave ambiguities in intended meaning unresolved.

Implications of the Study

These results lead to the following implications for business communication instruction in Singapore.

Analysis of Overall Means for Writing and Oral Skills

The importance of writing skills had an overall mean of 4.38, implying that instructors considered them important; however, their perception was that students possessed only average writing skills (M, 2.97), producing a mean difference of 1.41, suggesting that the overall writing skills of undergraduates need to be vastly improved. In the case of oral skills overall, respondents generally perceived them as somewhat important (M, 4.19). However, they believed students possessed only average oral skills (M, 2.92), yielding a mean difference of 1.27, once again suggesting that students also clearly need to improve such skills.

Background Variables Among Respondents

The perceptions were shared as a whole across different groups of instructors. Independent t-tests yielded no statistically significant differences in the perceptions of the importance and student possession of written and oral communication skills between local and non-local instructors, less experienced educators (fewer than five years of experience) and more experienced (more than five years), or between educators who had taught in countries outside Singapore and those who had not. ANOVA tests likewise revealed no statistically significant differences in the perceptions of the importance and possession of writing and oral skills among instructors of different ranks.

Practice of and Feedback on Writing Skills

Faculty perceptions of student possession of written communication skills as average or worse may be related to the amount of practice and feedback that students receive. Surprisingly, as many as six percent of respondents reported not giving any written assignments, and 80 percent required an average of only one written assignment per course. Written assignments provide the only opportunities to practice writing skills. An average requirement of only one written assignment per course suggests that students received insufficient practice, which arguably might account in part for the faculty perceptions of only average student possession of writing skills.

Incredibly, as many as 33 percent of the respondents who reported giving students a written assignment also reported that they did not return these assignments. Even when students were given an assignment and had it returned, the survey responses indicated that only 31 percent of instructors always gave more feedback than a grade, while 11 percent never did. The general lack of feedback may indirectly explain these faculty perceptions of the no more than average writing skills of undergraduates.

If students do not receive feedback on their assignments, they presumably remain ignorant of their areas of weakness. If written assignments are not returned, what or how are students supposed to learn from them? Grading is a method of assessment and also a pedagogical strategy. In The New St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing (Ed. Connors & Glenn, 1999), research on grading and feedback indicates that instructors support and enhance learning by complimenting the good aspects of written work and offering constructive criticism to improve any weakness. Sommers (1982) argues that students need instructor feedback as a way of encouraging and teaching them to improve their writing, that errors should be corrected, and that suggestions for revision should be offered to help students do better the next time they are given a writing assignment.

As Table 3 shows, command of language rather expectedly was given the least concern when grading assignments. Disappointingly, as many as 35 percent reported that they do not consider command of language when grading assignments.

This last percentage suggests that instructors attached little importance to correct English usage, which in turn undoubtedly sends a similar message to students and seems to contradict what the Singapore government campaign is endeavoring to do. If students are under the impression that correct English usage apparently matters relatively little, they will arguably take little care with language usage either at university or in the workplace.

Not surprisingly, 96 percent of respondents felt a need for improvement in undergraduate writing skills. Some suggested that writing skills would be improved if more written assignments were given and if students generally read and wrote more. However, if instructors are generally unwilling to take time to mark assignments and provide constructive feedback, what is the purpose of having students write more? A few reported that more feedback would be useful to students, that writing skills should be considered when grading assignments and examinations, and that written assignments should also be returned once graded. Some recommended that more communication workshops be provided, while others opined that language foundation should be more firmly established during secondary education. A few suggested that the business communication course should increase its contact hours, while others recommended increasing the faculty-student ratio to give more attention to student writing.

However, the fact that fully a quarter of respondents reported that it was their belief that improving writing skills should be the responsibility of the business communication course alone, and thus presumably not the courses they taught, seems to suggest unwillingness among many to accept any responsibility for improving students' written communication skills. In their defense, however, some respondents did cite a shortage of time for communication education as a shortcoming of their courses.

Practice of and Feedback on Oral Skills

Disappointingly, as many as 20 percent reported that business communication should be the only course that attempts to improve undergraduate oral presentation skills.

Results showed that the majority of respondents required one to two oral presentations of each student. Surprisingly, however, 48 percent did not include oral presentations in continuous assessment. Presentations provide good practice opportunities for undergraduates, as they learn to convey their intended message to an audience with more confidence. However, the relatively common school practice of student presentations of answers to end-of-chapter textbook questions clearly does not reflect the types of presentations required in the workplace.

Only 17 percent of respondents reported always giving feedback to students on their presentation skills, and fully 14 percent reported never giving feedback. With little faculty feedback, students will find it difficult to improve their oral presentation skills. It is hardly surprising that students' oral presentation skills are considered only average and that 92 percent of respondents reported that students needed to improve such skills. Some attributed the responsibility of building up oral communication skills to pre-university training, and others again expressed the need to introduce more communication courses.

Conclusion

The main objectives of the study were to examine business faculty perceptions of undergraduate communication skills and to seek to explain them, ultimately, to the business school itself. The findings suggest that instructors believed that local students needed to improve some of their communication skills more urgently than others, as can be seen from the rankings used. Differences were found between the perceived importance and undergraduate possession of alt the writing and oral competencies surveyed, supporting the results of similar studies in other countries and also lending support to employer and government criticism in the local media of a definite need for improvement.

This gap between perceived importance and student possession of communication skills can arguably be attributed in large part to the findings of a lack of communication practice, a lack of faculty feedback on student assignments, the belief of some instructors that only the business communication course should provide such practice, the apparent lack of importance attached to correct language usage by some instructors, and the lack of any communication support program or center, particularly for weaker students.

The task of preparing students for workplace communication falls on all university-level educators, not just on those teaching business communication. Although most instructors in this study believed in the importance of effective communication skills and communication education for students, I concluded that some of their courses and programs generally failed both to meet the standards of communication education necessary to prepare graduates adequately for the increasing communication demands of the international marketplace and also apparently to accept communication as an integral element of business education, equal in importance to other business topics. Similar conclusions have been drawn on numerous occasions over the last decade (Pincus & Rayfield, 1994; Sriram & Coppage, 1992).

Indeed, this lack of acceptance is arguably the primary cause for the inadequate preparation of students and ultimately may explain in part why many organizations have to provide employee communication training, costly in both time and money.

The AACSB (AACSB Standards, 2001) has adopted standards emphasizing communication skills as an important characteristic in the curriculum and has stressed, together with the National Standards for Business Education (NBEA, 2001), that schools should ensure that students both acquire these skills and be required to demonstrate them in each course. As a result, many business schools have changed or are changing their curricula and graduation requirements (Knight, 1999) by adding writing courses, integrating writing into more courses overall, and raising the standards for communication generally in accordance with accreditation guidelines.

Business schools in Singapore, which likewise seek AACSB accreditation, might be well served by looking more closely at the AACSB accreditation guidelines regarding communication education and also at developments in this area in schools elsewhere. Such developments include the establishment of writing or communication skills centers and the implementation of writing-across-the-curriculum and/or writing-within-the-discipline programs, thus providing writing-intensive courses in addition to business communication, and team teaching. By redesigning courses and programs accordingly, business schools in Singapore would better prepare students for the workplace.

Logically, one would have thought that business schools in Singapore, where English is both the language of business and the medium of education but not a native language, would actually be doing more to improve English communication education than their counterparts in English Li-speaking countries. However, in this case, the opposite is true. Unless the situation changes and such schools show real commitment to communication education, employer and government complaints are bound to continue, no matter what campaigns the Singapore government introduces.

Table 1

Survey Responses: Importance and Possession of Writing Skills (Scale:
Importance: 5 = Important; 4 = Somewhat important; 3 = Neutral; 2 =
Somewhat unimportant; 1 = Unimportant; Possession: 5 = Good; 4 = Above
average; 3 = Average; 2 = Below average; 1 = Poor).

                                            Important        Possession
Competency                              Mean       SD           Mean

Clear expression of thoughts and
 ideas                                  4.76      0.54          2.76
Support for arguments with
 examples, facts, and statistics        4.59      0.63          2.80
Summary of key points at the end        4.42      0.68          2.73
Grammatically correct sentences         4.70      0.58          3.02
Effective organization of materials     4.77      0.49          3.11
Clear overview of main points at
 the beginning                          4.45      0.66          2.83
Use of appropriate business
 terminology                            4.51      0.70          3.11
Citation of sources using correct
 format/style (e.g., APA)               3.81      0.99          2.44
Good vocabulary (other than
 business terminology)                  4.46      0.60          3.12
Correct punctuation                     4.32      0.74          3.19
Correct spelling                        4.54      0.62          3.42
Variation in sentence structure         3.84      0.76          2.86
Appropriate format and layout in
 theses and reports                     4.10      0.79          3.39
Non-discriminatory as regards
 gender                                 3.46      1.05          3.02

                                     Possession  Difference
Competency                            SD        in Means

Clear expression of thoughts and
 ideas                               0.80         2.00
Support for arguments with
 examples, facts, and statistics     0.80         1.79
Summary of key points at the end     0.71         1.69
Grammatically correct sentences      0.92         1.68
Effective organization of materials  0.75         1.66
Clear overview of main points at
 the beginning                       0.78         1.62
Use of appropriate business
 terminology                         0.67         1.40
Citation of sources using correct
 format/style (e.g., APA)            0.86         1.37
Good vocabulary (other than
 business terminology)               0.65         1.34
Correct punctuation                  0.88         1.13
Correct spelling                     0.77         1.12
Variation in sentence structure      0.75         0.98
Appropriate format and layout in
 theses and reports                  0.80         0.71
Non-discriminatory as regards
 gender                              0.88         0.44

Table 2

Survey Responses: Importance and Possession of Oral Skills (Scale:
Importance: 5 = Importance; 4 = Somewhat important; 3 = Neutral; 2 =
Somewhat unimportant; 1 = Unimportant; Possession: 5 = Good; 4 = Above
average; 3 = Average; 2 = Below average; 1 = Poor)

                                         Importance           Possession
Competency                        Mean           SD       Mean

Clear expression of thoughts and
 ideas                            4.74          0.49      2.94
Speaking with confidence          4.46          0.66      2.87
Speaking fluently and smoothly    4.44          0.58      2.93
Students are organized in their
 speech                           4.64          0.58      3.16
Appropriate non-verbal
 communication in presentations   4.07          0.85      2.64
Support for statements with
 examples, facts, and statistics  4.31          0.79      2.94
Grammatically correct sentences   4.23          0.77      3.07
Correct pronunciation             4.17          0.76      3.07
Variation in pitch and tone       3.96          0.79      2.89
Avoidance of Singlish             3.85          1.05      2.88
Effective use of AV aids in
 presentations                    3.94          0.85      2.99
Non-discriminatory as regards
 gender                           3.52          0.92      3.05

                                  Possession  Difference
Competency                         SD       in Means

Clear expression of thoughts and
 ideas                            0.76      1.80
Speaking with confidence          0.80      1.59
Speaking fluently and smoothly    0.78      1.51
Students are organized in their
 speech                           0.73      1.48
Appropriate non-verbal
 communication in presentations   0.76      1.43
Support for statements with
 examples, facts, and statistics  0.77      1.37
Grammatically correct sentences   0.80      1.16
Correct pronunciation             0.80      1.10
Variation in pitch and tone       0.74      1.07
Avoidance of Singlish             0.93      0.97
Effective use of AV aids in
 presentations                    0.77      0.95
Non-discriminatory as regards
 gender                           0.75      0.47

Table 3

Criteria for Grading Written Assignments

                                        Respondents
Criteria                               Yes       No

Command of language                    65%      35%
Organization of materials and ideas    98%       2%
Provision of relevant information      89%      11%

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Address correspondence to the author, Tanglin P.O. Box 257, Singapore 912409 (e-mail: glennwharon@smu.edu.sg).