Communication Roulette: Engaging Students in the Practice of Tailored Communication

Abstract

The ability to communicate effectively is critical in the accounting profession, yet research shows there is a gap between employer expectations and student abilities to adapt communication to various contexts. In this paper we introduce "Communication Roulette", a novel learning intervention that encourages students to practice their written communication skills by sensitizing them to the need to tailor their message to different audiences (i.e. shareholders, management, clients, etc.) using various communication formats (i.e. letter, email, presentation etc.) while simultaneously reinforcing their knowledge in important content areas. We provide implementation instructions and sample prompts, along with ideas to modify the intervention for a variety of classroom settings. Survey results indicate students find Communication Roulette increases both their confidence and ability to communicate effectively with different audiences and formats. We find these improvements in learning outcomes can largely be achieved through peer feedback alone, although we document incremental improvements in self-reported confidence with supplemental instructor feedback. Finally, pre- and post-assessments indicate an increase in student content knowledge following implementation of Communication Roulette.