A STUDY TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE TEACHING OF BASIC GRAMMAR SKILLS IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION CLASSES IMPROVES STUDENTS BUSINESS LETTER WRITING

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students write better business letters as a result of studying basic grammar in a university business communication class. Two hundred eighty-nine students participated in this study. Five or six 50-udnute periods of basic grammar were taught to the 1980 Fall semester classes, whereas no grammar was taught to the 1981 Spring semester classes. A pre-test and post- test business writing letter problem was given to both groups. Pre-test and post-test mean scores for students who studied basic grammar were compared to the pre-test mean scores for students who did not study basic grammar. In both comparisons the difference was not significant. A major recommendation is that a specified period of time should not be spent on teaching basic grammar to students studying letter writing in business communication classes