Attitudes and perceptions of public relations professionals towards graduating students’ skills
Abstract The study asks whether universities should educate public relations students with a focus more on traditional skills or new technical skills. Results of a survey of 113 public relations professionals show that, while new technical skills are seen as increasingly important, professionals still value traditional skills more. Within the new technical skills, professionals emphasized the latest trends.
Bridging the writing gap between student and professional: Analyzing writing education in public relations and journalism
Highlights - PR industry professionals still complain that graduates lack basic writing skills. 
 
 - Journalism graduates do not seem to experience the same industry criticisms. 
 
 - A study identifies differences in content, teaching methods, and assessment across 30 PR and journalism writing courses. 
 
 - A bridging curriculum in PR writing courses will help students build skills in limited genres using authentic assessment. 
 
 - Strategic considerations to be covered in advanced courses once the basic skills of PR writing have been mastered. 
 
 Abstract 
 
The public relations industry expects graduates to be proficient at writing yet industry professionals still complain public relations graduates lack basic writing skills. By contrast, journalism graduates do not seem to experience the same criticisms. Using a pedagogical framework of student attainment, this study investigates public relations and journalism writing courses across 30 university courses to identify differences between the two disciplines, and implications for public relations writing education. The findings suggest public relations writing courses should adopt a bridging curriculum to support students to develop their writing skills in limited genres using authentic assessment. Strategic considerations should be covered in more advanced courses once the basic skills of public relations writing have been mastered.
Using Activity Theory in Developing Instructial Tools for Project Management Studies
Competence and skills of the project manager are significant to project success. The skills needed in project managersâ work cannot be learned only by reading the books or a lecture hall; one learns them by practice. Therefore, an important challenge for educational institutions is to develop pedagogical practices that allow students to participate in working life projects and to confront real-life problems. Project-based learning (PBL) offers a model that enables students to practice the skills and competences needed in working life projects by utilizing real-world work assignments in time-limited projects. Using PBL method alone does not necessarily guarantee learning result. In order to be successful, PBL method requires effective and competent supervision and guidance of students as well as appropriate tools for instruction. In this study the concepts from activity theory (AT) are applied to development tools for supervising project-based learning.