How Can Teachers Motivate Students to Study Theoretical Modules in Public relations?/Como Pueden Los Maestros Motivar a Los Estudiantes Para Estudiar Modelos Teóricos En Relaciones Públicas

Abstract

1. IntroductionIn the past two decades, public relations education has witnessed considerable growth and academic attention. Public relations education has been connected in the literature to the industry professionalism (Pavlik & Salmon, 1984). In other words, it is a core requirement for preparing a professional PR practitioner. Some scholars associated PR professionalism with the beginning of PR education (L'Etang & Pieczka, 1996) and emphasised the importance of education to enhance the growth of PR (Newsom, Turk, & Kuruckeberg, 1999). However, many PR see the field very practically and consider PR theoretical modules as boring and not important. This raises the question: How can teachers design theoretical courses in a practical field such as public relations? Based on Grunig and Hunt's study undertaken in 1984, PR courses should provide with PR management and commu- nication skills, besides practical experience through using theoretical knowledge in practice. Therefore, this research aims to investigate how to motivate to make sense of what they are studying in the PR theoretical modules which the researcher/teacher was teaching through learning-by-doing activities. The research uses an action research process to improve the procedures of learning-by-doing exercises.2. Literature Review2.1 Public relations education & practiceA study undertaken by Al-Rashid (2004) on PR practitioners in Bahrain ministries found that more than the half of PR practitioners in Bahrain ministries (52%) agreed that experience and intuition are more important than academic theory when solving a PR problem, and (26%) tended to agree. On the other hand, the research also revealed that (48%) of the respondents agreed, and (37%) tended to agree, that theory and research contribute to professionalism in the PR industry (Al-Rashid, 2004). However, there is a gap between theory and practice in public relations raised by Cornelissen's question (2000) of how academic theories can be used in common daily PR practice. This research argues that in order to bridge this gap, we should design PR theoretical modules in a way that would prepare the to apply them in practice.2.2 The relationship between PR theory & practiceAlthough see a gap between theoretical modules and practice, this study claims that there is an interrelated relationship between theory and practice in PR. The role of the teacher is to enhance this relationship. Theory can be used to solve daily PR problems (the instrumental model), in addition to providing general views when practising public relations (the conceptual model) (Cornelissen, 2000). Thus, this research attempts to study how this relationship can be achieved and facilitated starting from university. Neff and other scholars (1999) found that a PR educational programme should assist PR to develop an interdisciplinary foundation, communication and public relations-specific knowledge and skills. It was argued that these skills can be learned more effectively in a university setting (Wang, 2003, p. 13). However, Surveys of Professionals and Educators showed that students are poorly prepared in terms of basic communication skills, which ironically are the very capabilities that are in demand in order to succeed in the 'real world' (Wang, 2003, p. 11).2.3 The Ripple Model of LearningBased on the Ripple Model of Learning presented by Race (2005), there are five factors underpinning successful learning: wanting to learn, needing to learn, learning by doing (practice, trial and repetition), learning through feedback, and making sense of things (Race, 2005). This research seeks to study the role of the teacher to connect these factors and enhance them in the classroom. Race (2005) suggested that if the lack the want and need to learn, the teacher can start from facilitating learning-by-doing activities, and get the student making sense of what they have been doing. …