Enhancing students professional communication skills through client reports Faculty Spark - View, reflect and apply

Last updated on 25/02/2020

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Description

In a third year Taxation Planning course, a business letter of advice assessment item was introduced to develop students abilities to communicate complex taxation concepts to clients.

Challenge

Throughout their studies, students will regularly complete academic written assignments, requiring an ability to demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of complex technical information. However, it can be difficult for students to translate this complex, technical information to clients. This requires the ability to tailor communication depending upon the audience and identify solutions that are customised according to the client.

Approach

Within a third-year Taxation Planning course, two inter-related assignments was incorporated to develop students professional communication skills. The first assessment item required students to conduct a client interview. For more information on this assessment task, view the Related Entries. Based upon the information derived from the client interviews, students were then required to conduct a secondary assessment item in which they created a business letter of advice for their client.

The business letter of advice constitutes 35 per cent of the overall grading for this course. Students are assessed on the following:

  1. Application - understanding of all relevant laws, policies and issues as raised by the client during the interview.
  2. Conclusions - recommendations are clearly communicated to clients and a rationale for these recommendations have been provided.
  3. Research - all relevant policies or legislation has been correctly cited.
  4. Organisation - the letter of advice is clearly and logically organised.
  5. Format - the conventions of the letter of advice have been conformed to, including font, page limit etc.
  6. Expression - appropriate adoption of language, grammar and expression.

Students must work through a large range of information (e.g. from the initial client email and the client interview) to then develop a range of recommendations for the client based upon the facts.

To enable students to develop this letter of advice, a range of support resources are provided to students:

  • Templates - a template is provided for students so that they can see first hand the structure and language to be adopted in a business letter of advice.
  • Student exemplars - previous student examples are provided, this includes Fail, Pass, Credit and Distinction examples. Through providing students with this range, it demonstrates what went wrong and also some examples for them to aspire to.
  • Business advisor - during a lecture, an industry professional facilitates a guest lecture in which information on what a good letter of advice is shared with students.
  • Marking criteria - prior to the completion of the assessment, the marking criteria is discussed with students. During this conversation, the underpinning transferable skills that the students are developing through completing this assessment are explicitly referenced (e.g. communication).

Outcomes

This assessment item effectively demonstrates to students the types of tasks that they may complete in the workforce. It also provides students with an example for when they are applying for graduate positions of their professional skills. Overall, students have expressed a greater degree of confidence in the field and feeling more prepared for the industry.

Implement

If you are thinking about implementing this approach, consider the following:

  • Create connections with industry professionals and invite them to guest lecture on the topic. This ensures that students are able to see the direct relevance of the task, and it also gives it greater credence and relevance. It also provides an opportunity for students to engage with prospective employers.
  • Provide a range of support materials for students including: templates and student exemplars. This gives students a starting base and something to refer to when drafting the assessment item.
  • Engage with your students in conversations around the rubric and explicitly state what it is expected of the assessment.
  • Encourage students to show you short drafts of their work, as students can struggle writing in a different ‘business’ like context.

Griffith Graduate Attributes

This assessment item aligns with the following Griffith Graduate Attributes:

  1. Knowledgeable and skilled with critical judgement
  2. Effective communicators and collaborators
  3. Innovative, creative and entrepreneurial.

This assessment item requires students to apply their discipline knowledge, develop a range of solutions or recommendations for the issues raised by their client and communicate these recommendations in a clear and professional manner.

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The Griffith material on this web page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This licence does not extend to any underlying software, nor any non-Griffith images used under permission or commercial licence (as indicated). Materials linked to from this web page are subject to separate copyright conditions.

Preferred Citation

Freudenberg, B. and Learning Futures. (2020). Enhancing students professional communication skills through client reports. Retrieved from https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/exlnt/entry/5472/view