Business and Professional Communication Quarterly Aug 2026 Open Access

Why So Much Writing? I Thought This Was an IT class

Christopher J. McKenna Stephen F. Austin State University

Abstract

Annual assessment scores from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), local business leader feedback, and extensive classroom experience all indicate that students need additional practice writing, particularly in business and/or technical programs in which students often actively avoid courses featuring writing (and to a lesser extent, public speaking). Moreover, experiential learning activities tend to aid students in their eventual transition into the workplace—and they often generate increased levels of student enthusiasm and engagement. However, even as students commonly engage in group-work in business and tech programs, they typically operate within insular groups that rarely if ever interact with other groups. On the other hand, real-world workgroups depend functionally upon contributions from other groups and, in turn, produce deliverables of their own within cycles of inter- and intra-group feedback and cooperation. Therefore, this semester-long, full-class assignment has been designed to address these issues within an Information Technology course setting that, quite unexpectedly for the participants, forces students to practice all of these skills within a simulated work environment.

Journal
Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
Published
2026-08-13
DOI
10.1177/23294906261472047
CompPile
Open Access
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