Assessing the Effectiveness of a Writing Intensive Course in Business

Abstract

Many business people and academics feel that students’ ability to communicate in writing has deteriorated over the past few decades.  In response to this decline, colleges and universities addressed the problem by introducing more writing intensive (WI) courses with an emphasis on writing in the disciplines.  In this article, we analyze the students’ rubric scores on their assigned cases as they progress through a WI international financial management course which is fully online.  During the current Covid-19 pandemic more and more colleges and universities are conducting online courses. To assess learning, increases in the rubric scores during the semester are tested for statistical significance.  Significant overall improvement in student writing occurred, but students’ grammar and spelling remain weak.