Who's Calling? - Assessing The Effectiveness of Role Play in Developing Telephone Conversation Skills in Engineering Students

The use of telephones as a means of conversation has diminished in recent years with the advent of alternative, less personal forms of conversation. Professional telephone skills have been identified by employers and students as a challenge for new graduates in the engineering work environment. As part of the ECO-GT research project, a telephone role-play was designed to use with undergraduate engineering students. In Technological University Dublin, there were two iterations of this workshop delivered to a group of eight 3rd year students, and subsequently to nineteen 2nd year students. The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate and practice the skills required in conducting professional telephone skills when communicating with professionals across different disciplines. Quantitative feedback demonstrated that students perceived that the learning outcomes were met. This paper provides a template for this workshop to be used with engineering students in other contexts to introduce them to the importance of telephone skills.