Methodology in Seeking Stakeholder Perceptions of Effective Technical Oral Presentations: An Exploratory Pilot Study.

Introduction Research, defined as "an organized, systematic, data-based, critical, objective, scientific inquiry or investigation into a specific problem, undertaken with the purpose of finding answers or solutions to a definite inquiry" (Sekaran, 2003, p. 5), requires the use of a specific methodology (or methodologies) to meet a study's objective. This paper reviews the mixed methodology utilized in this study to elicit feedback from selected respondents on presentation skills and attributes required in a communicative event (the technical oral presentation). Technical oral presentation is "a prepared formal presentation on any topic such as communication, scientific, engineering, technological, business, regulatory, legal, managerial, or social scientific information topics to a nonexpert audience" (DiSanza & Legge, 2002, p. 198). An effective technical oral presentation includes the presenter's mastery and skill in "technical content, organization, presentation criteria and visual/graphics" and practice of the "group criteria" element (Pappas & Hendricks, 2000, p. 13). The "group criteria" element refers to the speaker's ability to deliver content matter effectively as a team member. The speaker must be able "to synthesize reading material, grasp a consistent level of detail on the subject matter and possess overall group dynamics" (Pappas & Hendricks, p. 13). In other words, he or she must be able to work and contribute effectively as a team member. Hence, an effective presenter is one who is able to "articulate communication and presentation skills in his professional workplace, environment and future development" (Engineering Professional Council, 2001, p. 2). The importance for engineers to communicate effectively and be equipped with communication skill is emphasized in other engineering communication studies (Dannels, 2002; Nguyen, 1998; Patil, 2005; Patil, Nair, & Codner, 2008; Schnell, 2006). Recent headlines continue to express concern over graduates' unemployment and lack of communication skills (Bernama, 2010; Tan, 2008; Tay, 2008). In addition, communication skill is also recognized as an essential learner outcome by the Engineering Criteria (EC) 2000 of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET), a leading accreditation organization in the world. One of the EC outcomes is that engineers of the 21st century need to "demonstrate effective engineering communication skills" (Hovde, 2005, p. 1). Despite the importance of this communication skill requirement, there is limited research available on the perception of stakeholders involved in workplace communication events such as technical oral presentations. Stakeholder perceptions on effective presenter skills and attributes needs to be properly explored so that effective teaching, learning and development of communication skills in engineering curriculum programs can be further enhanced and developed by curriculum specialists and developers. In addition, assessing observables (behavior) in oral communication activities is challenging and complex because "what constitutes effective communication in one setting may be ineffective in another" (Schirmer, Mauksch, Lang, Marvel, Zoppi, Epstein, et al., 2005, p. 185). The global concern for excellent communication skills propelled the researchers to conduct the present study to identify the presentation and communication skills requirements of various stakeholders involved in technical oral presentations to lessen the "academia-practitioner competency divide" (Dunbar, Brooks, & Miller, 2006; Thomas, 2007; Ziegler, 2007). For the purpose of this study, academic community refers to final year engineering students, engineering lecturers and non-engineering lecturers of the university. The professional engineering community includes engineering professionals or specialists working in the engineering industry. The findings provide feedback on perceptions of effective presentation and communication skills of participants who are involved directly or indirectly in technical oral presentations. …