Teaching students how to tailor messages: lessons learned from a technical communication course

Abstract

Tailoring messages is the process of customizing messages that are more relevant for the receiver, with the aim of improving the recipient’s engagement with and understanding about information in the message. Little research has been done to look at tailored messages in technical communication about healthcare technology, even though the use of technology in healthcare, and the complexity of that technology, continues to increase. Research was performed to investigate if students who plan to work in the healthcare technology field can demonstrate an understanding about tailoring messages and can tailor messages in their technical communication. A four-phase Action Research Cycle for inquiry into teaching and learning was used to modify course materials and analyze work for six assignments submitted by 14 students enrolled in Technical Communication for the Health Care Professions, TCM 38000, during the 2015 spring semester. Although TCM 38000 has always been open to students in other majors, the majority of students who take the course are in the Health Engineering Technology Management (HETM) program at Purdue’s School of Engineering and Technology on the campus of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in Indianapolis. Overall, the modifications made to TCM 38000 were successful in helping students begin to learn about tailoring messages and create messages tailored for a specific end-user in their technical communication developed for some course assignments. In their Reflections for a User Manual assignment, the majority of students explained that they used what they learned through course materials and discussions to reach beyond their learning and come up with techniques for tailoring messages on their own. Students used word choice, information content and role-play techniques to determine the end-user’s information needs and then to tailor messages in their manuals to address those needs. After reflecting on the results of the research, some course materials will be modified so that students can gain a deeper understanding about tailoring messages and can have more opportunities to practice writing tailored messages in course assignments. Research implications expand beyond the classroom into workplace training for organizations that have both technical and non-technical employees that must effectively communicate.