Date of Award
12-1994
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Dr. Charles C. Warfield
Second Advisor
Dr. Uldis Smidchens
Third Advisor
Dr. Roberta Allen
Abstract
The central question explored in this research was whether the perceptions of undergraduate students and business employers about the importance of writing skills for success in business differ from one another. Related questions were posed about the relationship of certain individual characteristics such as sex, student classification, and student institutional affiliation and their interactions to these perceptions.
Subjects were selected from both public and private institutions of higher education and 11 medium-sized businesses in western Michigan. Data collection was accomplished using two 30-item Likert-type Importance of Business Writing (IBW) questionnaires developed for obtaining information on the perceptions of subjects relative to the importance of business writing for 70 volunteer business subjects and 214 volunteer student subjects. A rating of the importance of business writing was secured for all subjects providing responses to 10 specific items on the instruments. Comparisons of mean ratings of importance utilizing t tests of independent samples were undertaken to test the four hypotheses related to differences between subgroups; two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to test the significance of interactions between independent variables.
The major conclusion in this study was that the perceptions of students and business persons about the importance of business writing skills for future success in business differ from one another. Other conclusions found in the study were that the perceptions of the importance of business writing for students in the public university and the private college differed, and that the interaction between students' institutional affiliation and their classification as an upper- or lowerclassman was associated with variations in their perceptions of the importance of writing skills for future success in business. The study also concluded that individuals of both sexes share essentially the same perception of the importance of writing skills for business success.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Coleman, Miriam P., "An Exploration of Students’ and Business Persons’ Ratings of the Importance of Writing Skills for Business Success" (1994). Dissertations. 1846.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1846