“Bring Workplace Assessment into Business Communication Classrooms: A Proposal to Better Prepare Students for Professional Workplaces” by Han Yu

“Bring Workplace Assessment into Business Communication Classrooms: A Proposal to Better Prepare Students for Professional Workplaces” by Han Yu -Using your reading as a starting point, develop a topic into an argumentative essay. -This topic is attached PDF file as reference with this order. -Follow the two instructions below. - Make the two parts separately. Part One - Seminar (10 minutes) •    The seminar will be a presentation of the argument essay in process •    The seminar will include : o    A 200-word summary of your article (in your own words) o    A detailed outline of your argument essay with full thesis, topic sentences, and support o    Two carefully crafted focused, but open-ended discussion questions Part Two – Final Argumentative Synthesis Essay (1250-1500 words) The final paper assignment will be an argumentative synthesis that is controlled by your understanding, ideas, and opinions on your selected reading.  Using your own thoughts and synthesizing the reading you have chosen, include •    An introduction that draws the reader in an ends with the thesis statement •    An explicit argumentative thesis that makes an assertion about your content and organizes/announces the arguments in the paper; for the sake of clarity, underline the thesis. •    Arguments that contain claims and specific support •    Clear transitions between each section to signal the direction of your discussion •    Correct in-text and end-text APA citations •    Paraphrase and summary of your reading, but no more than 5% of direct quotation BRING WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT INTO BUSINESS COMMUNICATION CLASSROOMS: A PROPOSAL TO BETTER PREPARE STUDENTS FOR PROFESSIONAL WORKPLACES Han Yu Kansas State University To help students better understand and be better prepared for professional workplaces, the author suggests that business communication teachers examine and learn from workplace assessment methods. Throughout the article, the author discusses the ratio- nale behind this proposal, reviews relevant literature, reports interview findings on work- place assessment, and compares classroom and workplace practices to suggest areas where we can meaningfully bridge the two. Keywords: assessment; workplace; classroom; business communication ASSESSMENT, ANDREWS (2001) WROTE, is an important issue frequently raised in Business Communication Quarterly. Smart assessment “makes teachers accountable, creates a structure or a road map to success, and can act as a research tool for best practices” (Andrews, 2007, p. 9). What, then, is “smart assessment”? There is, of course, no one right answer. Teachers in business communication, technical and professional communication, and rhetoric and compo- sition have studied this topic from various perspectives. Among the different ideas, this article focuses on one—that of business commu- nication teachers learning from industry to design and enhance how we assess students’ written and oral communication. The idea of learning from industry is nothing new to the field of professional communication: Our scholars have examined the gen- res and communication contexts at various workplaces (for instance, Odell & Goswami, 1986; Spilka, 1998) and attempted to enact those contexts in classrooms (for instance, Blakeslee, 2001; Freedman, Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 73, Number 1, March 2010 21-39 DOI: 10.1177/1080569909357783 © 2010 by the Association for Business Communication 21 22 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 Adam, & Smart, 1994; Garay, 1995). However, when it comes to assessment, the idea of learning from industry is not readily embraced. Only a handful of studies (Bergland, 1997; Dragga, 1991; Schullery, 2003; Seshadri & Theye, 2000) explicitly point out this need. Why? A possible reason is that assessment is “powerfully effective for planning, designing, and promoting distinctive programs and then recruiting desirable students and faculty” (Allen, 2004, p. 93). Looking at industry to design assessment may thus be interpreted by some faculty as “a degenerative slide into a vocationalist paradigm that replaces education with training” (Dillon, 1997, p. 49). So why do I suggest that we learn from workplace assessment? There are several key reasons. First, as Dillon (1997) wrote, “corpo- rate types” are not all “money-mongering” pragmatists, and work- place institutions “can and do contribute to student learning” (p. 50). The stereotypical views of industry “must stop if we are to realize the promise of assessment to change and improve higher education in this country” (p. 50). Second, as Bazerman (2003) pointed out, we must understand assessment before we can understand the knowl- edge, skills, and experience essential to successful performance. If we want to help students succeed in workplace communication— however “success” is defined by a workplace institution—we must understand how employees and their performance are assessed and deemed successful in those institutions. Third, precisely because assessment is a powerful institutional tool, we need to introduce and expose students to workplace assessment—while they are still in a “safe” classroom environment—so students may develop the out- sider perspective to question and critique workplaces’ status quo. By learning from workplace assessment, I do not mean we should duplicate workplace practices without pedagogical concerns, a hyper- pragmatic stance that may, indeed, slide education into training (Scott, Longo, & Wills, 2006). What I suggest is that business communica- tion teachers (1) try to understand more about workplace assessment and (2) examine the possibilities of combining the best that classrooms and workplaces have to offer. We need to understand what kinds of assessment are valued in the workplace (for instance, formative or summative, longitudinal or immediate), what assessment methods are commonly used in professional workplaces, and what the pur- poses of these methods are (for instance, making promotion decisions or enhancing performance. Only then can we find out if there are common grounds between classrooms and workplaces, whether we can learn from workplace assessment to enhance our teaching, and if so, how. These are the questions I try to answer in this article. To do so, I first review relevant literature to define the scope and focus of my proposal. I then report my interview findings with workplace pro- fessionals on the topic. Last, drawing from existing studies and my own findings, I propose several workplace assessment features that may be introduced into business communication classrooms. CURRENT LITERATURE Bazerman et al. (2005) used the following to distinguish studies that examine how we react to student writing: response, evaluation, and assessment (p. 121). Response pertains to how we respond, orally or in writing, to student work. Evaluation pertains to how writing influ- ences student ranking in terms of grades and education placement. Assessment is a more complex term, addressing both assessment methods (such as the process used and the parties involved) and assessment criteria (or standards and measurements). To a certain extent, this last category frames the previous two. Assessment meth- ods can determine the responses we give or at least how students per- ceive them: Formative assessment, for instance, is more likely than summative assessment to generate feedback that focuses on learner improvement. Similarly, assessment criteria can affect the evaluation students receive: The importance we attach to the style of writing relative to its content, for instance, can influence the grade a piece of writing receives. Scholars have explored the possibilities of learning from work- places from all three of these angles. In terms of response, Dragga (1991) compared commentaries made by technical writing teachers and by professional editors and supervisors and found that writing teachers most often ask questions, while editors and supervisors prescribe specific changes. Dragga thus questioned the relevance of facilitative commentary traditionally preferred by English teachers and suggested we learn from industry’s commentary strategies. In terms of oral response, Freedman and Adam (1996) found that Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 23 24 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 conversations between workplace supervisors and learners are highly interactive, inviting the full participation of the learner, which they believed rare in school settings. Freedman and Adam did not pro- pose that we favor one learning mode over another but that we care- fully consider the advantages and implications of each. In terms of evaluation, contributors in Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Paré (1999) and Dias and Paré (2000) argued that universities engage in learning activities, and therefore teachers are more likely to evaluate writing and use evaluations to rank students; by contrast, workplaces engage in economic production, and therefore reviewers are less concerned with evaluation or ranking than with improving communication as a means to facilitate economic activities. These scholars suggested that such differences will continue as long as uni- versities and workplaces remain different institutions and perform different social functions. In terms of assessment methods, Schullery (2003) suggested a holistic method modeled after real world practice to emphasize writ- ing’s “effectiveness” at reaching goals rather than its following of “absolute standards”; Bergland (1997) suggested that business writing teachers use workplace performance reviews to assess students’ small assignments. In terms of assessment criteria, Pittenger, Miller, and Mott (2004) combined classroom and industry standards to enhance students’ presentation skills; Seshadri and Theye (2000) pointed out that business professionals judge writing more on substance and less on style and suggested that faculty learn from such standards. Of all these possible angles, this article, in its limited space, focuses on assessment methods, that is, how we may learn from workplace assessment methods to enhance business communication classroom practice. I believe this topic calls for more research because existing studies such as Schullery (2003) and Bergland (1997) focused only on one workplace assessment method and did not review various other possibilities; furthermore, as mentioned earlier, assessment can impact how we respond to and evaluate student work, so positive changes in classroom assessment methods can best enhance how we prepare students for the professional workplace. With these points in mind, in the following, I draw from an interview study and business literature to examine different workplace assessment methods. I then compare these methods with classroom practice to suggest areas where we may learn from workplaces. RESEARCH METHOD The interview method was used for this study because it could gen- erate rich and descriptive data. These primary data, combined with secondary findings from business literature, can lead to more reli- able and contextualized findings. The interviews were qualitatively designed so it was proper for me to use purposeful sampling and select participants “from which the most can be learned” (Merriam, 1998, p. 61). The criteria for sampling were as follows: participants have at least undergraduate education, they work in the kinds of pro- fessional workplaces our students may aspire to enter upon graduation, and their work involves communication. The following participants were recruited: • Bernice, a technical editor at a national insurance company • Stacy, a communication specialist from the same company as Bernice, but from a different department • Jim, a technical analyst at a financial service company • Lynn, a marketing assistant at a workplace safety consulting firm • Susan, manager of the System Development Office at a rural university • Shawn, a software engineer at a local research center This, I realize, is a small sample and cannot generate representative data, but unlike quantitative research that uses statistically represen- tative samples to realize generalization, “qualitative inquiry typically focuses in depth on relatively small samples, even single cases (N = 1), selected purposefully” (Patton, 2002, p. 230). The goal is indepth understanding and credibility, not representativeness (Patton, 2002). The interviews lasted 45-60 minutes and were conducted at par- ticipants’ workplaces. The interviews were semistructured (Merriam, 1998), starting with questions regarding participants' work experiences and job responsibilities, and then moving to questions about assessment. I asked participants what assessment methods are used at their workplaces, how do these methods work, and how do they feel about these methods. Depending on participants’ answers, different follow-up Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 25 26 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 questions were asked. I made notes during the interviews and tran- scribed them immediately after for analysis. COMMONLy USED WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT Performance Review From the 1960s to the 1990s, performance reviews became increas- ingly popular in various organizations, industrial as well as govern- mental, large as well as small (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995, pp. 4-5). According to Pfau and Kay (2002), this trend continued into the 21st century: The number of companies using 360-degree performance reviews, a particular type of review described later, grew noticeably from 1995 to 2000. Performance reviews serve two major purposes: providing employ- ees with feedback to validate and refine their work, and helping orga- nizations make administrative decisions such as promotions and raises (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). My interview findings suggest the same: Jim’s, Shawn’s, and Bernice’s workplaces conduct performance reviews when it is time to make reappointment, promotion, and raise decisions. At Lynn’s company, reviews generate feedback for employ- ees to improve their work; although reviews do not immediately lead to employee reward, they are referenced when such decisions are made in the future. Companies often conduct performance reviews on an annual basis (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995), which is true in Bernice’s, Shawn’s, and Lynn’s cases, whereas at Jim’s company, the review is semian- nual. Because these reviews are infrequent, Lynn and her colleagues have ample time to prepare for them. Typically, 2 months before the review, Lynn starts reflecting on her performance in the past year, looking for and collecting evidence of accomplishments, and considering areas for improvement. Performance reviews are implemented differently across work- places. At Lynn’s company, the employee under review collects evi- dence of her performance, and the supervisor examines the evidence to form an evaluation. This is the traditional, single-source review conducted between a supervisor and an employee (Church, 2000). In Jim’s and Bernice’s cases, performance reviews involve multiple sources: Employees develop—with the input and approval of management—performance goals that relate to their job responsibili- ties; employees reflect on how they progressed toward those goals; team members likewise provide feedback; and managers use their own knowledge, peer feedback, and employees’ self-reflections to make evaluations. These are the new performance reviews variously called the 360-degree review, multirater review, or full circle review (Church, 2000). As Rynes, Gerhart, and Parks (2005) wrote, “because 360-degree feedback is gathered from multiple individuals, feed- back reliability and validity may be substantially improved over the typical supervisor-only evaluation” (p. 579). Although performance reviews are long-established and widely used, they are not without drawbacks. As Murphy and Cleveland (1995) argued, performance reviews are not only assessment tools, they are communication and management tools. That is, raters may use performance reviews to gain organizational leverage rather than to give accurate assessment: Peers may give inflated reviews to gain goodwill from fellow employees, supervisors may give subordinates inflated reviews to make themselves look good to the upper manage- ment, or, on the other hand, raters may give deflated reviews to employees whom they do not personally identify with (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). Peer Review Because of “downsizing and reduced hierarchies in organizations, as well as the increasing use of teams and group accountability, peers are often the most relevant evaluators of their colleagues’ performance” (United States Office of Personnel Management, 1997, p. 4). In addi- tion, because “peer ratings can be pooled,” peer reviews “can substan- tially increase reliability and partially remove idiosyncratic biases” (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995, p. 140). As mentioned earlier, peers often participate in 360-degree performance reviews. At Jim’s com- pany, for instance, peers who work closely with the employees under review are asked to individually identify the employees’ accomplish- ments and areas for improvement and anonymously submit feedback. In addition, peers are often involved in routine assessment of each other’s work. Lynn’s company, for instance, uses biweekly “thinking Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 27 28 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 meetings” where employees ask about each other’s progress and offer suggestions. At Susan’s and Shawn’s workplaces, peer reviews are mandatory processes built into project life cycles: For instance, employees need to have their application code and web accessibility peer reviewed before they can move forward with coding or design. For Bernice’s editing team, while peer editing is not mandatory, it is what the team often relies on to ensure the quality of their work. But again, workplace peer reviews can be a source of conflict too. Peers are not always comfortable with being a rater, especially when peer reviews are used to make administrative decisions such as pro- motions and raises (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995, p. 141). Jim, for instance, mentioned that negative peer feedback during performance reviews can cause a lot of “mistrust” and “hurt feelings” in a team. To avoid such negative outcomes, peers may choose to give inflated reviews (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995) or hesitate to offer critical feedback (Peiperl, 2005). Self-Assessment Employee self-assessment is often included in 360-degree perfor- mance reviews. This is because individuals have ready access to infor- mation about their own performance, information that may not be observable by others (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). At the same time, scholars also acknowledge that there are often discrepancies between self-assessments and ratings by others (see, for example, Nilsen & Camp- bell, 1993). Given these discrepancies, self-assessment is generally not accepted as the sole indicator of employee performance. Rather, it is coupled with information from others to “provide insights into one’s level of self-awareness” (Halverson, Tonidandel, Barlow, & Dipboye, 2002, pp. 3-4) and to enhance one’s “self-awareness and subsequent behavioral change” (Church, 2000, p. 99). In my conversation with Jim, he initially stated that self-assessment is a very small part of his workplace assessment experience; that is, although employees are asked to reflect on their own work, those reflections can hardly challenge peer or manager feedback. But as our interview proceeded, Jim gradually came to acknowledge that although self-assessment may not significantly affect performance review results, it can be a useful personal development tool: It helps him to more consciously monitor his work, cultivate desirable skills, and therefore enhance his long-term career development. Bernice made similar observations. Years of experience taught her that a good editor should monitor her own performance and deliver the best work “even when the boss and the customer are not watching.” At Lynn’s company, self-assessment is used more systematically: At the end of each month, an employee produces a monthly “responsibility map” that documents the works she completed, how well they were com- pleted, what lessons were learned, and her plan for the next month. According to Lynn, these responsibility maps are not used to evaluate employees but urge them to continuously improve their own work. These practices, then, seem to correspond with what literature suggests—self-appraisals are often used for employee development (London & Beatty, 1993). Rather than helping institutions to deter- mine pay and promotions, self-assessment helps employees to under- stand their own strength and weakness and make better decisions about their career and development. Critical Incident Review Unlike semiannual or annual performance reviews, workplace assess- ment can also be immediate so as to respond to critical incidents— hence the name “critical incident review.” Different organizations will have different standards for what is “critical,” but Susan offered a working definition: Critical incidents are high-priority issues that, if handled inappropriately, can jeopardize the success of a work effort. While long periods of time can go by without such incidents, when they happen, they should be assessed immediately when the incidents are still concrete so the assessment can be more accurate and effec- tive (Billikopf, 2003). Both Susan’s and Shawn’s workplaces use critical incident reviews. As Susan described, when critical incidents happen, she invites employees to a review session, which she calls a “critical inci- dent autopsy.” During this session, attendees analyze and document what led to the incident, what went wrong, how to correct it, and how to avoid similar situations in the future. While Susan’s reference to an “autopsy” has negative connotations, critical incident reviews also include reviewing incidents where employees performed particularly Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 29 30 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 well so reviews can reinforce best practice (Billikopf, 2003). Although critical incident reviews take on much urgency, according to Susan and Shawn, the reviews are not to judge who did what wrong but to solve problems and improve work practice. At the same time, as Susan and Shawn were quick to add, if an employee continues to per- form poorly during critical incidents, these reviews will in the long run lead to negative performance review results. Casual Review During our interviews, some participants came to recognize a method they did not see as assessment before. I call it “casual review,” which includes peer and supervisor informal feedback—informal in the sense that it is given orally or via quick emails (not documented) and does not follow established processes as in the case of performance reviews or critical incident reviews. Participants tended not to see these as “assessment” because such feedback happens frequently and is part of their work routine. At Lynn’s company, when an employee’s work is not going well, her team members would “confront” her. This confrontation, accord- ing to Lynn, is not hostile but is a conversation to help the team move forward. As Susan and Shawn also described, supervisor feedback can come rather informally at work: through a spur-of-the-moment sitting down together, hallway conversations, or phone conversa- tions. The informal format, Shawn explained, enables feedback with- out taking employees away from their work and slowing down the work pace, which is vital when the team is trying to meet deadlines. In addition, according to Shawn and Susan, such informal meet- ings sometimes establish common ground for later assessment. That is, formal criteria may not always exist prior to a workplace task; instead, they are developed as the task itself takes shape. In these situ- ations, employees use informal interactions with peers and supervi- sors to establish common expectations so they are not held accountable for requirements they are not aware of. Because of their informal nature, casual reviews do not directly influence employee evaluation. A supervisor, for instance, does not use hallway conversations to “grill” employees but instead to gather information to coordinate team efforts or anticipate issues. Then again, as critical incident reviews, casual reviews can, over time, affect supervisors’ and peers’ opinions of an employee, which they may later channel into performance reviews. BRINGING WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT INTO THE CLASSROOM Based on the above findings, in what follows, I discuss some key features of workplace assessment methods, compare workplace and classroom practices, and explore the possibilities of bridging the two. I am aware that, as discussed earlier, workplace assessment has its own drawbacks, but some of its methods, I believe, have promising applications in a business communication classroom. Longitudinal Assessment Workplace performance reviews are based on employees’ longitudinal performance, not their work on any particular task. At the same time, through frequent supervisor/peer casual reviews, employees’ continu- ous self-assessment, and necessary critical incident reviews, quality control is built into employees’ everyday work to enable their progress, and this progress is in turn captured through longitudinal performance reviews. As Messmer (2004) concluded, the most effective reviews are year-round reviews supplemented by ongoing feedback so employ- ees have a clear understanding of how their performance is viewed by others and what kinds of evaluation to expect at the year end. Longitudinal assessment is likewise emphasized in our classrooms, notably through portfolio assessment that examines multiple drafts that a student completes. Nevertheless, several aspects of workplace performance reviews can inform how we use portfolio assessment. First, performance reviews, as my participants and Bergland (1997) suggested, evaluate employees’ performance on various tasks, both high-stake tasks and low-stake, day-to-day routine tasks. Portfolio assessment, on the other hand, often examines selected high-stake papers that have gone through extensive teacher/peer reviews and student revision (Clark, 1993; Coppola, 1999; Hamp- Lyons & Condon, 1993). When they do not include routine tasks that students rely more on themselves to complete, portfolios may not present the full Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 31 32 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 picture of a student’s progress. Second, workplace performance reviews are accompanied by frequent supervisor and peer feedback, through either casual reviews or more established peer review sys- tems. Frequent feedback enables employees to catch mistakes earlier on, understand their strength and weakness, and gradually improve performance. We need to ensure that similar interactions, as dis- cussed in more detail later, are built into portfolio assessment; other- wise, the use of a longitudinal assessment method alone would not automatically lead to improved student learning outcomes. Contextualized Assessment In real life, assessment does not depend on universal standards but is influenced by “contextual limitations, support systems, and ‘rules’ of operation” (Scanlon & Ford, 1998, p. 99). My interview findings sug- gest the same. When established criteria for a workplace task do not exist ahead of time, employees use casual interactions with supervi- sors and peers to form common expectations, which are arguably more contextualized than if they simply invoke rubberstamp criteria. In addition, performance reviews do not (or at least should not) eval- uate employees based on universal standards but ones that relate to an employee’s job specifications or personal goals. Such personalized reviews, Posthuma and Campion (2008) concluded, are the best way to conduct employee performance reviews. Assessment theorists such as Huot (1996) likewise emphasized the importance of context in classroom assessment: “It is a truism in current ideas about literacy that context is a critical component in the ability of people to transact meaning with written language. . . . A theory of assessment that recognizes the importance of context should . . . be concerned with creating assessment procedures that establish meaningful contexts within which teachers read and assess” (p. 559). Despite such recognition, because we often do not teach writings specific to one organization or industry (which is, of course, not a weakness itself), we necessarily resort to more generic criteria in the classroom: meeting the audience’s needs, for instance. But what “the audience’s needs” are and what counts as meeting those needs vary across rhetorical contexts and disciplinary fields. This situation is compounded when, in most cases, writing teachers are the only ones prescribing assessment criteria. If each student is developing a unique project and communicating with a unique audience, teacher- prescribed criteria cannot hope to be contextualized for all students’ work. Given these, our teachers may find it helpful to learn from app- roaches used in the workplace: guide students to develop individu- alized criteria according to students’ different project contexts, and then use those customized criteria to assess each student’s work. During this process, writing teachers will gain a better understand- ing of each student’s project and the unique communication context that he or she is trying to navigate. Armed with such understanding and the more realistic and specific criteria that students developed, teachers can reach more valid assessment. At the same time, stu- dents will experience a meaningful learning process. By identify- ing and developing assessment criteria, students will better understand what is required of their work at hand, develop a more acute understanding of purpose and audience, and be better prepared for future workplaces where they will play a more active role in establishing and identifying assessment criteria. Focus of Assessment Whether it is the casual review, critical incident review, or employee self-assessment, the purpose of workplace assessment is not to eval- uate employees but to improve the work they do. As mentioned ear- lier, this focus, according to Dias et al. (1999), is determined by the primary goal of the workplace: pursuing productivity and economic returns. It is true that we cannot always clearly separate assessment and evaluation: Critical incident reviews and casual reviews, as described earlier, can over time influence performance reviews. Despite this, the primary purpose and immediate effect of these assess- ment methods is monitoring the quality of employees’ work, not eval- uating whether they are quality employees—an approach that helps to orient employees, at least on a daily basis, toward improving the work they do rather than worrying about rewards or punishment. As teachers, we also very much emphasize student learning improve- ment: We give comments on drafts, hold conferences with students, and give formative assessment before summative grades. But too Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 33 34 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 often, students’ concern rests on the grade: They may be more inter- ested in using teacher comments to fix local “mistakes” in drafts and improve their grades than in considering the wider implications of those comments to their work and themselves as writers, or they may grow anxious and defensive, misconstruing, as Elbow (1997) wrote, a question, an observation, or even a mild praise in our comments as criticism. These, according to Dias et al. (1999), result from the university’s conflicting motives: On the one hand, universities perform epistemic activities that help students to learn; on the other, teachers have to sort and rank students—two goals that “often exist in uneasy tension” (p. 47). If universities have different (and more complex) social motives from workplaces, can we still apply their methods in classrooms to refocus assessment? I believe so—because the assessment/evaluation conflicts we experience in the classroom are not absent in workplaces. As Murphy and Cleveland (1995) pointed out, performance reviews have conflicting purposes, both to make administrative decisions such as raises and promotions and to provide employees with feedback for improvement. Workplace strategies to handle this conflict, especially the use of casual and critical incident reviews and the more active involvement of employees in assessment, may help us orient students more toward learning outcomes. Teachers can, throughout the semester, have informal conversations with students to casually review their progress and areas for improvement so students understand where they are and what to do next. We can more openly discuss with students the expectations we set for the class and, if necessary, adjust those expectations to help the class reach common ground on assessment and clarify misunderstandings. We can use critical incident reviews to inter- vene or reinforce students’ behaviors, such as when they performed particularly poorly or well on an assignment. Such activities may help students become less anxious or defensive with assessment and more open to receiving feedback, which are important not only for improving their classroom learning but for their future workplace performance. Collaborative Assessment Rather than relying on supervisors as the sole experts, today’s pro- fessional workplaces encourage and even require multiple parties to participate in assessment. Certainly, these parties do not always agree, but such disagreement, Murphy and Cleveland (1995) reminded us, indicates the very necessity of collecting information from multiple sources to avoid biases (p. 143). The value of collaborative assessment is likewise recognized by business communication teachers: Dillon (1997) involved commu- nity partners to assess student portfolios; Dyrud (2001) used peer reviews to give students nonevaluative feedback as well as help determine their group project grades; Pittenger, Miller, and Mott (2004) involved external consultants to teach students oral presenta- tion skills valued in real workplace settings. These experiments not only led to targeted classroom learning outcomes—in terms of writ- ing, group work, and oral communication—they also helped pre- pare students for collaborative assessment in their future workplaces. These experiments, however, remain the extraordinary rather than the ordinary. More business communication teachers need to consider involving stakeholders such as students, faculty from other disci- plines, local community partners, and industry professionals in assessment. I understand that logistic constraints can make it difficult for teachers to reach out to all these stakeholders. In those cases, we can start with the less time- or resource-demanding collaborative meth- ods: student peer assessment and student self-assessment. Many of us already use these methods, but armed with an understanding of workplace methods, we can enhance our current practices and better connect with the workplace reality. For example, workplace employees not only respond to peers’ work but evaluate peers through 360-degree performance reviews, whereas in classrooms, students may only be “peer respondents” and do not have the authority to evaluate. As Dyrud (2001) advocated, giving students the chance to evaluate peers provides teachers with more perspectives in evaluation and also prepares students for work- place practices. In addition, workplace peer reviews are not performed by any peers but by those who know each other’s work well and are therefore better prepared to offer feedback and evaluation; by contrast, in the classroom, it is not unusual for students to complain that they did not understand the work they reviewed or that their reviewers failed to understand their work. To help students practice meaningful peer assessment, we can put students in review pairs or Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 35 36 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 groups throughout a semester or at least throughout a project life cycle to gain familiarity with each other’s work; we can also have students review each others’ preliminary project tasks (such as a proj- ect description, audience analysis, etc.) as opposed to only the final project work. With regard to self-assessment, employees’ self-assessment hap- pens on a daily basis as they interact with peers or supervisors at work. This continuous process helps them to internalize assessment goals and more consciously monitor their performance. Employees’ self- assessment is also factored into performance reviews. In the class- room, however, self-assessment such as writing reflectively on one’s learning or evaluating oneself may only be a one-time assignment. In addition, because it is hard for teachers to “assess” self-assessment and weigh it into grades, students may see these tasks as “busy work” and complete them haphazardly. To engage students in more produc- tive self-assessment, we need to educate them that self-assessment is primarily a personal development tool beneficial for their learning and future career. We can also choose to reward self-assessment (for instance, including it in performance reviews) so students see that these tasks do “count.” We may assign reflective journal writing or a series of small selfassessment tasks at different checkpoints during a semester so students can continuously reflect on the challenges they encountered, be more critical of their progress or the lack thereof, and thus be more likely to experience the value of self-assessment. CONCLUSION Professional workplaces, like our classrooms, value longitudinal, contextualized, and collaborative assessment; moreover, workplaces have developed their own methods to enhance assessment and resolve conflicting purposes in assessment. By understanding and learning from these methods, business communication teachers can combine the best that classrooms and workplaces have to offer. The methods discussed in this article are by no means exhaustive. More possibilities exist if we continue to study workplace practices and experiment with bridging classroom and workplace assessment. Also, various methods can often work together. For instance, we can collaborate with workplace professionals to help students understand discipline- or profession-specific writing contexts and create individ- ualized assessment criteria; student peers can help review these criteria to gain a better understanding of each other’s work; using individual- ized criteria, workplace professionals, peers, and teachers can collab- oratively review students’ work; students’ self-developed assessment criteria and peer review comments can also be included in classroom performance reviews. These activities will help students prepare for their future work- place assessment. By understanding assessment, students can also better understand what is expected of them at work and how to meet those expectations. Lastly, introducing and exposing students to workplace assessment provides an opportunity for business commu- nication teachers to discuss situations where workplace assessment breaks down. Such discussion may help students develop a more informed understanding of the workplace reality and a more critical view of how to position themselves in those environments. References Allen, J. (2004). The impact of student learning outcomes assessment on technical and profes- sional communication programs. Technical Communication Quarterly, 13, 93-108. Andrews, D. (2001). It depends on when you ask. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(4), 7-8. Andrews, D. (2007). How do we know we’ve won? Business Communication Quarterly, 70, 9-15. Bazerman, C. (2003). What is not institutionally visible does not count: The problem of making activity assessable, accountable, and plannable. In C. Bazerman & D. Russell (Eds.), Writing selves/writing societies: Research from activity perspectives (pp. 428-482). Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse. Bazerman, C., Little, J., Bethel, L., Chavkin, T., Fouquette, D., & Garufis, J. (2005). Reference guide to writing across the curriculum. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press and WAC Clearinghouse. Bergland, B. (1997). Incorporating performance reviews into the business writing classroom. Business Communication Quarterly, 60(4), 52-62. Billikopf, G. (2003). Labor management in agriculture: Cultivating personnel productivity. Oakland, CA: Regents of the University of California. Blakeslee, A. M. (2001). Bridging the workplace and the academy: Teaching professional genres through classroom-workplace collaborations. Technical Communication Quarterly, 10, 169-192. Church, A. (2000). Do higher performing managers actually receive better ratings? A validation of multirater assessment methodology. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 52(2), 99-116. Clark, I. (1993). Portfolio evaluation, collaboration, and writing centers. College Composition and Communication, 44, 515-524. Coppola, N. W. (1999). Setting the discourse community: Tasks and assessment for the new technical communication service course. Technical Communication Quarterly, 8, 249-267. Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 37 38 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2010 Dias, P., Freedman, A., Medway, P., & Paré, A. (1999). Worlds apart: Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dias, P., & Paré, A. (Eds.). (2000). Transitions: Writing in academic and workplace settings. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Dillon, T. (1997). Corporate advisory boards, portfolio assessment, and business and technical writing program development. Business Communication Quarterly, 60(1), 41-58. Dragga, S. (1991). Responding to technical writing. The Technical Writing Teacher, 28, 201-221. Dyrud, M. (2001). Group projects and peer review. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(4), 106-112. Elbow, P. (1997). High stakes and low stakes in assigning and responding to writing. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 69, 5-13. Freedman, A., & Adam, C. (1996). Learning to write professionally: “Situated learning” and the transition from university to professional discourse. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 10, 395-427. Freedman, A., Adam, C., & Smart, G. (1994). Wearing suits to class: Simulating genres and simulations as genre. Written Communication, 11(2), 193-226. Garay, M. S. (1995). Meeting workplace needs in an introductory business writing course: A tale of a classroom corporation and a “boss” instructor. Business Communication Quarterly, 58(1), 35-41. Halverson, S., Tonidandel, S., Barlow, C., & Dipboye, R. (2002). Self-other agreement on a 360-degree leadership evaluation. Paper presented at the 17th annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Retrieved from http://rcoes.rice.edu/ docs/Halverson&others2002.pdf Hamp-Lyons, L., & Condon, W. (1993). Questioning assumptions about portfolio-based assessment. College Composition and Communication, 44, 176-199. Huot, B. (1996). Toward a new theory of writing assessment. College Composition and Communication, 47, 549-566. London, M., & Beatty, R. W. (1993). 360-degree feedback as a competitive advantage. Human Resource Management (1986-1998), 32, 353-372. Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Messmer, M. (2004). Developing effective performance reviews. Strategic Finance, 85(9), 13-14. Murphy, K. R., & Cleveland, J. N. (1995). Understanding performance appraisal: Social, organizational, and goal-based perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Nilsen, D., & Campbell, D. P. (1993). Self-observer rating discrepancies: Once an overrater, always an overrater? Human Resource Management (1986-1998), 32, 265-281. Odell, L., & Goswami, D. (Eds.). (1986). Writing in nonacademic settings. New York: Guilford Press. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Peiperl, M. A. (2005). Getting 360- degree feedback right. In Harvard Business Review (Ed.), Harvard business review on appraising employee performance (pp. 69-83). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Pfau, B., & Kay, I. (2002, June 1). Does 360-degree feedback negatively affect company performance? HR Magazine, pp. 55-59. Pittenger, K., Miller, M., & Mott, J. (2004). Using real-world standards to enhance students’ presentation skills. Business Communication Quarterly, 67, 327-336. Posthuma, R. A., & Campion, M. A. (2008). Twenty best practices for just employee performance reviews. Compensation Benefits Review, 40(1), 47-55. Rynes, S. L., Gerhart, B., & Parks, L. (2005). Personnel psychology: Performance evaluation and pay for performance. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 571-600. Scanlon, P., & Ford, M. (1998). Grading student performance in real-world settings. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 74, 97-105. Schullery, N. (2003). A holistic approach to grading. Business Communication Quarterly, 66(1), 86-90. Scott, J. B., Longo, B., & Wills, K. V. (2006). Why cultural studies? Expanding technical com- munication’s critical toolbox. In J. B. Scott, B. Longo, & K. V. Wills (Eds.), Critical power tools: Technical communication and cultural studies (pp. 1-19). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Seshadri, S., & Theye, L. (2000). Professionals and professors: Substance or style? Business Communication Quarterly, 63(3), 9-23. Spilka, R. (Ed.). (1998). Writing in the workplace: New research perspectives. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. United States Office of Personnel Management. (1997). 360-degree assessment: An overview. Retrieved from http://www.opm.gov/perform/wppdf/360asess.pdf Han Yu is an assistant professor at Kansas State University, where she teaches techni- cal and professional writing. Han received her Ph.D. in English Studies from Illinois State University. Her research interests include writing assessment, workplace studies, and international and cross-cultural technical communication. Address correspondence to Han Yu, English Depar tment, 108 E/CS Building, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506; email: [email protected]. Yu / WORKPLACE ASSESSMENT 39 Copyright of Business Communication Quarterly is the property of Association for Business Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT :)