ERIC Number: EJ1269431
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2575-694X
EISSN: N/A
Consultants in the Classroom: Pilot Study Assessing Multidisciplinary Center Collaboration
Brown, Carl; Rapp, Ashley B.; Wallace, Adrienne; Torreano, Jennifer; Rabine, Melanie; Johnson, Patrick
Communication Center Journal, v5 n1 p19-36 2019
Communication center clients come in various forms. Many centers work with individuals and groups while some work with entire classrooms, departments, or colleges. Very few centers "both" partner with other campus consulting services "and" interact with large units. While a considerable amount of literature focuses on one-on-one consultations and some work focuses on collaboration between similar centers (McCall, Ellis, & Murphy, 2017), little, if any, research deals with these unique partnerships "and" how they collaborate to serve groups. This article examines how one communication center partnered with two other campus consulting services to create a purposeful and collaborative relationship with three sections of a communication course for an entire semester each. The goal of this work is to test effectiveness value of communication and similar consultants in the classroom, and to understand if one approach to consultant inclusion in the classroom is more empowering than another. To accomplish these goals, three groups, or classes, of students were used. The control group excluded all consultant participation. One experimental group had consultants embedded themselves into each class meeting. The other experimental group had consultants provide service-specific workshops during select class meetings. The collaborative partnership for this study included speaking, writing, and research center consultants and pre-and post-semester scales were used to compare empowerment levels and subject knowledge values between groups. Results suggest the workshop group produces higher empowerment and learning levels than other groups.
Descriptors: Communications, Program Effectiveness, Consultants, Workshops, Partnerships in Education, Higher Education, Agency Cooperation, Self Esteem, Student Empowerment, Knowledge Level, Communication Skills, Speech Skills, Writing Skills, Research Skills, Undergraduate Students
National Association of Communication Centers. 738 South Mason Street MSC 1023, Harrisonburg, VA 22807. e-mail: ccj_editor@uncg.edu; Web site: http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ccj/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A