Linda, I think this approach is quite widespread, in the U.S. at any rate. Here at Purdue, for example, in our professional/business/technical writing courses, it's common practice for instructors to have teams of students take on communication-related projects for "real-world" client organizations in the community. The team will negotiate the work to be done with a contact person in the organization, carry out the necessary research (onsite observations, interviews, document analysis, etc.) and analysis, and then produce a recommendation report to be delivered to the client. The client organizations can be community groups, nonprofit organizations, campus administrative units, or business firms. And the projects that teams take on can include a wide range of tasks, anything from, for example, designing/redesigning a website for the client organization, to producing various types of documentation, to solving systemic communication problems among employees, to producing a proposal for government funding. The results can be very good. If all goes reasonably well, the team members will have had the experience of accomplishing a professional piece of work for an outside-of-school client/audience. Hope this is helpful. Graham Linda Schofield wrote: > > Do you (or does anyone you know) use field work exercises in your business > communication courses? > > I have recently completed a pilot analytical report-writing course at > Ryerson University that centred around a single question about written > communication in the workplace. As part of my ongoing research I am > trying to determine to what extent field work is used to teach business > communication by instructors at post-secondary institutions in North > America. That is, do instructors have their students conduct qualitative > or quantitative primary research, such as interviewing, experiments and > surveying? If so, how does this research fit into the > course structure, and what are the perceived benefits of using this > approach? Do respond as well (giving reasons) if you have stopped using, or > have deliberately chosen not to use field work. > > You can reply to me at my academic address ([log in to unmask]). > I look forward to your responses. > > Cheers, > Linda > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties, write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask] For the list archives and information about the organization, the annual conference, and publications, go to the Inkshed Web site at http://www.StThomasU.ca/inkshed/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-