Using communication audits to teach organizational communication to students and employees

Communication audits serve well as educational tools for both student auditors and employees of organizations. To use audits, teachers need to gain access to organizations, especially through internal audit departments; negotiate the exchange of essentially free audit findings for a learning experience and research data; and secure commitment from top management, other organizational members, and student auditors. To administer the audit itself, teachers should start with a pilot audit followed by full assessment, conduct a two-phase process of data collection and analysis that includes questionnaires and interviews, and report findings in a timely and effective manner. The promises of the approach outweigh its inevitable perils.