SOBA 205: Professional Communications (Spring 2020)

In my study, I asked students to rank the skills from one to four, one being the most important:

Ability to evaluate articles and journals/ magazines for credibility

Ability to Search for books and eBooks

Citing sources in a paper

Research strategies (techniques)

After the instruction, students ranked these skills from 1-4. Of those they ranked first, the skill with the highest number was “research strategies and techniques,” with nearly half the students agreeing, eclipsing the others by more than 15%. Citing sources finished second, followed by the ability to evaluate sources for credibility, and then search for books and eBooks.

When asking the same question after the midterm submission, the results changed significantly. While remaining in the number one spot for importance, research strategies fell 12% and the other skills moved up significantly, creating a much more even distribution among students. As the charts shows, less than 6% separates the top skills from bottom.