Teaching Conflict Resolution: A Study of Two Interactive Methods  

Oleh:

Pathak, Anil ; Cavallaro, Francesco

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: The Asian ESP Journal vol. 2 no. 2 (2006), page 6-26.
Fulltext: Untitled2.pdf (206.67KB)

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Formal oral communication forms a significant part of most of the Business Communication courses at the tertiary level. Role-plays and simulations have long been used in the discovery-based approaches to teach purpose-oriented oral communication. In this study, the effectiveness of Role Play was compared against that of an educational computer-based game (ECBG). These two methods were applied in the conflict resolution (CR) part of a business communication course in a Singaporean university. Three groups of computer engineering students studying communication skills participated in the study. The aim of the CR lessons was to teach the students to deal with a difficult person in the context of asking for a raise. All groups were initially given a lecture on CR methods. Then one group was asked to work through a Role Play (RP) activity; another group worked on a computer game (G) and the last group was asked to engage in both activities. The study was designed to answer the following three questions: (1) Which method (Role play or computer game) leads to more effective learning in terms of the achievement of the course objectives and Why? (2) Which method is preferred by the students? (3) Which particular features of each of the methods seem to work better? The data seems to support the thesis that the RP method is marginally better than G even though the effect is not statistically significant. The results also show that the Role Play method is generally preferred by the students who wish to transfer their skill to real-life situations. Ratings given by the subjects indicate that out of the given five features of Interactive Game, Animation helped them to learn most, followed closely by the use of Humour. In the case of Role Play method, Tutors’ comments helped to learn them the most, while observing other teams playing the roles was the second-most important factor, followed closely by enactment of the situation. Implications for the application of Role-plays in the classroom and for ECBG development are discussed.

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