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A recent collaboration between an instruction librarian and a marketing faculty member at �ǿմ�ý sheds new light on the value of teaching effective interviewing skills to students across a wide expanse of academic disciplines. The project demonstrates how the tactics used in gathering oral history can strengthen students’ abilities to conduct meaningful interviews.

Sarah Steiner, business librarian at �ǿմ�ý’s Hunter Library, described the results of that collaboration in an article titled "“Intercultural Oral History Interviewing as Information Literacy Instruction Method” published in the professional journal Public Services Quarterly.

The project stemmed from a conversation between Steiner and Scott Rader, associate professor of marketing, about struggles that some of his students faced in completing assignments in a global cultures course when they were asked to conduct interviews designed to have them engage directly with others about intercultural differences and similarities. For the assignment, the students were tasked with interviewing people from Germany, Japan, France, Dubai, Ecuador and Sweden.

“Dr. Rader observed that students increasingly struggled with the assignment, and participation declined. He noted that despite the drop-off, students consistently expressed interest in developing stronger interviewing skills. He shared, ‘Students generally want more interviewing skills. They see the value not only in the specific, subject matter-based applications of the course but also broader implications in their careers,’” Steiner said.

Steiner created a training module used by Rader and faculty members in other disciplines including communication and philosophy and religion that embedded interview-based projects into their courses and provided assistance in building and delivering curriculum from someone with broad expertise in interviewing.

In each course, the resulting module involved multiple class sessions during a semester. Modules varied based on individual course needs and available time, but all included a training session, mock or model interviews, student discussions, written homework and a final in-person presentation.

The sessions in Rader’s marketing class, which involved more than 30 students who agreed to participate in an assessment of the curriculum’s efficacy, revealed that the oral history training sessions had an observable impact on student learning, Steiner said.

“Findings from its use in the senior-level global cultures course, supported by pre- and post-assessment surveys, show that students found the experience challenging and rewarding. Many reported growth in both hard skills, such as research and analysis, and soft skills, such as communication and cultural awareness,” she said.

Such so-called “soft skills” are increasingly important in a higher education environment that emphasizes not simply memorization of facts and data but also an ability to engage meaningfully with research, critical thinking and inquiry, and to reflect and assess, Steiner said.

“Oral history interviewing can serve as a dynamic approach to teaching information literacy,” she said. “It requires learners to engage in active, nonjudgmental listening and guides them in the creation and consideration of primary sources.”

For Rader, whose students showed marked improvements in their ability to complete their assignments on the intercultural communications project for his class, the results were eye-opening, he said.

“A major assignment in my class is for students to put themselves into the position of talking to someone from another country. Therefore, they're talking to someone who is likely very different in a lot of ways, starting with the very nature of how they communicate. Most of my students have never talked to someone from another part of the United States, let alone across the globe. This requires a skill that we think might be natural, but it's not,” Rader said.

That skill set also seems to have weakened over time because of generational reliance on the tools of technology and intensified by societal closures during the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

“Simply put, many of my students are nervous about talking to a peer across the table from them who is probably very much like them, let alone a complete stranger from a foreign land. So before we even learn about the academic characteristics of what makes one culture different from another, we have to ‘back up’ and teach a group of young people how to talk to other people – face-to-face,” Rader said.

“This is where Sarah comes in. She has the necessary academic background and skills training, but more importantly she has a ‘magic touch’ in terms of demonstrating sympathetic listening, comfortable pacing and calm resolve,” he said.

The marketing students who participated in the sessions responded positively to the training, expressing appreciation for the new skills they gained, he said.

“For students who are not just categorically opposed to talking to ‘the other,’ and most of them aren't, they realize the value in terms of the ‘soft skills’ Sarah is teaching them. I think the majority of students want this knowledge. They realize they're at a disadvantage when it comes to what might otherwise be considered ‘basic’ interpersonal skills. Most importantly, regardless of whether they'll end up working in international marketing or with global consumers (the purview of the course), I think they realize this is a skill that translates to a lot of contexts and is very useful in life,” Rader said.

Steiner said that the techniques she used in Rader’s class could be utilized to improve the interviewing skills of all students.

“The article presents a collaborative oral history assignment that can be adapted across disciplines and settings. It explains why librarian participation is essential and provides a detailed curriculum plan,” she said.

Rader agreed.

“I don't think there is anything unique about my course curriculum that lends itself to being one of the only places where Sarah's instruction would be useful,” he said. “I can think of many courses, certainly in the College of Business and beyond, where students would benefit from knowing effective and restorative means of looking someone else in the face and trying to create a better space for understanding them.”

The explosion in the use of artificial intelligence and tools such as ChatGPT have made it more important than ever for students to continue to hone their skills in active listening, reflection and analysis, Rader said.

“I think the ability to engage ‘person-to-person’ – what academics might call ‘unmediated’ communication – is becoming not only more valuable with the advent of AI but a key differentiator in terms of future prospects as a businessperson or just a  human in general,” he said.

“In the future, as societal trends combine with technology to find more and more people who are inclined to ‘hide’ and let a machine do the work, what Sarah teaches is even more crucial for those who are willing to receive it. I think that skillset of sympathetic communication becomes more valuable as it becomes more rare,” Rader said.