Butler, D --- "Air Gondwana: teaching basic negotiation skills using multimedia" [2009] LegEdDig 29; (2009) 17(2) Legal Education Digest 49

• Air Gondwana: teaching basic negotiation skills using multimedia

---

Air Gondwana: teaching basic negotiation skills using multimedia

D Butler

1 JALTA 2008, pp213-226

The challenges posed by Contracts A and Contracts B are that these units have enrolments in excess of 500 students annually, and must cater for different modes of study including full-time, part-time and distance/external. This has implications for matters such as providing a demonstration of negotiation. The unit also has a large teaching team which includes both full-time and sessional staff, not all of whom are comfortable teaching and/or assessing negotiation when it did not form part of their own legal education. Air Gondwana has been designed to meet these challenges.

The program was created with the assistance of a $20,000 QUT Small Teaching and Learning Grant. It is a multimedia program which combines real-life video, modules produced using Adobe Authorware software, video using computer graphics, stills and a face-to-face role-play. The majority of the budget was committed to the production of the real-life video and for a learning designer to create the necessary Authorware modules. Costs were otherwise kept to a minimum by the author using freely available software including: (1) the Second Life online virtual environment, for which the author obtained a free account; (2) FRAPS, a free-to-download video capture program; (3) Microsoft MovieMaker, a video editing program generally pre-installed on Windows PC computers or available free-to-download from the Microsoft website; (4) Microsoft PowerPoint, a program freely available as part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs; (5) Audacity, a free-to-download audio editor; and (6) Freesound, a website allowing the download of sound effects subject to Creative Commons licence.

The program is based upon the contractual dealings of a fictional airline, Air Gondwana. The program follows a story-line which involves, in essence, a wealthy industrialist who wishes to eventually leave his business empire to his three children. However, one of the children, while not a fool, has preferred to lead a playboy lifestyle. The father therefore allows the son to take over the running of one of his companies, the airline Air Gondwana, as a test of his business acumen.

Module 1 of the program comprises two videos. The first is a short introduction to the airline and the story-line of the father entrusting management of the airline to his son. The second is a 20-minute instructional real-life video.

The program adopts the Harvard Negotiation Project as its basis for teaching the principles of negotiation. In particular, for a basic level of instruction, students are introduced to the notions of focusing on underlying interests rather than up-front positions, creating opportunities for mutual gain, using objective criteria, and BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement – or ‘Plan B’) and WATNA (Worst Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement – or worst-case scenario).

Modules 2 and 3 utilise Authorware software to present a range of fact scenarios involving the airline, including: the commissioning of a new wardrobe for cabin staff; purchase of computer software; catering and maintenance contracts; recovery of outstanding freight charges; and charter contracts. The text of these scenarios is accompanied by images created either using the Second Life virtual environment or the Microsoft Flight Simulator X program.

Students are asked questions addressing the application of the various principles of negotiation and provided space in which to enter their answers. Feedback is then provided on the question against which students may compare their own answers.

In all, there are 13 scenarios spread across the two modules. This requires a commitment by students of about two hours in total. The program is opened in week 4 of semester, providing time for students to become acclimatised to the other aspects of the unit, and is closed in week 10 so as to prevent the program intruding upon end-of-semester study time.

Modules 1-3 are undertaken in Contracts A. The remaining two modules are undertaken in Contracts B.

Module 4 utilises a similar interface to those appearing in Modules 2 and 3. However, rather than text describing a scenario which is accompanied by an image produced using Second Life or Flight Simulator X, Module 4 features a window in which video portraying the story-line of the purchase of an aircraft from a foreign owner is played.

At various points, the video stops and the student is asked a question concerning the application of negotiation theory.

The story-line in Module 4 is linear in nature. In other words, the story unfolds in the same way irrespective of the answers that a particular student may enter. Providing feedback on the question, against which the students may compare their answers, enables all students to obtain the same directed learning experience without requiring a more complex multi-branched story that depends upon individual student responses.

The final module includes the face-to-face role-play that students undertake during one of their regular tutorial classes (or, in the case of external students, during their compulsory attendance school). The role-plays in previous years involved providing students with single-page, double-sided briefing sheets that described the problem to be negotiated and the perspectives of the two sides to the negotiation.

By contrast, the Air Gondwana role-play involves briefing sheets and a ‘corporate video’ – once again machinima created using Second Life – distributed in advance via the online program to provide general background detail for the fact scenario that is the subject of the negotiation. The Air Gondwana role-play concerns an island which the airline wishes to turn into a tropical holiday resort but which an environmental group wishes to keep as an undisturbed nature sanctuary. The video portrays the island in its present state and enlarges upon the type of developments that the airline plans. The single-page, double-sided briefing sheet provided at the beginning of the role-play is now utilised more effectively to provide greater focus on specific issues to be addressed in the negotiation, and to provide more specific information concerning the motivations and perspectives of the particular party being represented by the student. This has enabled a more detailed and better rounded problem to be set. Better students have more background detail to work with, and a richer learning exercise which reflects real-life experience may therefore be enjoyed.

The debriefing in Air Gondwana is done by machinima, featuring the son who is in charge of the airline speaking to the students from various locations on the island. This video has been burned to CD and is distributed to all tutors to be displayed at the beginning of the class in the week following the role-play. In addition, individual feedback is still provided on the marked negotiated agreements.

The opportunity is taken in a subsequent tutorial class to make a link between the skill of negotiation and the law governing negotiation. This includes, for example, the legal position in relation to facts known by one party but not disclosed during the course of negotiation. In addition to re-examining the possible effect on the contract, it also provides an avenue for discussion of the ethical issues raised and encourages reflective practice for deep learning.

Air Gondwana utilises technology to address many of the challenges posed in these two units. By embedding the program in QUT’s Blackboard learning management system, the program provides the same learning experience regardless of the number of students and irrespective of whether these students are studying full-time, part-time or from a distance. The student is able to undertake the training at his or her own pace, at his or her own convenience and in a non-threatening environment. This is an important feature, especially for so-called ‘millennial students’, whose lives have been said to be characterised by ‘ubiquitous information, merged technologies, blurred social-study-work boundaries, multitasking and hyperlinked online interactions’.

Air Gondwana reflects elements of the learning model that Collins and his colleagues called ‘cognitive apprenticeships’. These elements include modelling, coaching, scaffolding, reflection and exploration.

Module 1 of the program provides not only instruction in negotiation skills and a demonstration of a positive model of negotiation practice, but also includes a depiction of a negotiation done poorly so that students may see what not to do. This includes a segment on the importance of non-verbal communication in negotiation, with that aspect, as displayed in the poor negotiation, being replayed and analysed. The instructional video also includes short vignettes that illustrate the principles being taught in practice.

Modules 2 to 5 take a constructivist approach to learning, the major aim being to engage the learner in carrying out tasks which lead to better comprehension. In the case of Modules 2 to 4, the technology is utilised to provide formative feedback to enhance that learning. This feedback is detailed and consistent for all students. The role-play in Module 5 then enables summative feedback to be provided for individual students.

There would appear to be no reason why this model should not, with appropriate adaptation, be capable of applying to the learning of skills. Air Gondwana represents an application of these five phases: it provides instruction so that students may become familiar with the key ideas of negotiation theory, examines the meaning of the language of this theory and illustrates that meaning by the short vignettes. It allows students to act on simulated but realistic situations, provides feedback to modify their understanding and adjust their approach, and gives them the opportunity to reflect and synthesise this understanding and feedback before being required to undertake the face-to-face role-play. They are further provided with individual feedback on the negotiated agreements that they produce, as well as general feedback by way of the debriefing machinima. Finally, the class in which the skill is linked with legal and ethical issues provides an additional opportunity for students to reflect on the ideas they have learnt in a broader context.

Air Gondwana motivates and engages students by using a realistic story-line of the fictitious airline to provide a meaningful context to the learning tasks they are undertaking. An important means of portraying this realistic story-line is the use of the Flight Simulator X images throughout the program and stills and machinima produced using the Second Life virtual environment to depict authentic scenarios.

Another major consideration in the design of such a program concerns its cost. It has already been noted that grant monies were required to produce the 20-minute instructional video and for a learning designer to assist in the creation of the Authorware components of Modules 2 to 4. However, a number of strategies were used to minimise the financial cost. The author was the writer, director and producer of the instructional video, thereby relieving the project of the cost of professionals in those roles. Suitably extrovert staff were utilised as actors, constituting a further saving. Whenever possible, freely available software was used by the author. Further, by embedding the program in QUT’s Blackboard learning management system, it gained the benefit of that program’s features such as hyperlinking, statistics tracking and reporting. Such features would otherwise have required the expense of specialist programming. However, these strategies themselves carry their own cost in terms of time. Assuming so many tasks associated with the project meant a commitment by the author in terms of time over 18 months that far exceeded a normal academic workload. However, the product of the labour has been a resource which creates an authentic learning environment for not only the originally intended audience (first-year law students) but also neophyte negotiators in other disciplines.

Different forms of monitoring and evaluation were employed in the course of the project. Focus groups comprising staff in the Contracts units and groups of students, were conducted at two stages: after the writing stage and after the production stage. Where necessary, adjustments were made to the project in light of this feedback. Ongoing contact was kept with a project reference group, the members of whom were expert in negotiation training.

After the program had been used by students, a formal survey was conducted with an 87.6 per cent response rate. The formal survey, which was paper-based and undertaken in tutorial classes, consisted of both quantitative and qualitative aspects. In addition, unsolicited emails were received which evidence student response to the program.

Two questions in the formal survey were specifically directed at measuring whether the project had successfully achieved its primary objectives of developing a solid foundation for development of students’ negotiation skills (ie. helping them to gain an understanding of basic negotiation theory and practice) and providing a better learning experience than the traditional format of instruction in a lecture and role-play previously utilised. The first question was: ‘Air Gondwana enabled me to gain an understanding of basic negotiation theory and practice’. A total of 94.8 per cent of respondents indicated ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ to this proposition. Indeed, only three students disagreed.

As noted, a challenge for the program was that it needed to cater for a large number of students variously studying full-time, part-time or externally. An aim of the program, therefore, was to deliver the same learning experience irrespective of the study mode of the student. It is worth noting that 95 per cent of full-time students agreed or strongly agreed, 90.5 per cent of part-time students agreed or strongly agreed and 95.8 per cent of external students agreed or strongly agreed with the question. This similarity in response across the different cohorts of students was also reflected in the other questions in the survey, discussed below. An external student stated in an unsolicited email, ‘I have found [Air Gondwana] to be fun and instructive ... Thanks for putting in such a lot of work to make learning interesting (and for finding ways of achieving equity in learning experiences for external students)’.

The objective of providing a better learning environment is difficult to measure since to be properly valid, it would require the same cohort to experience both the traditional form of instruction and the new approach produced by the project. Practically speaking, only students who had completed Contracts A previously and were undertaking Contracts B this year, or who had failed one or both of the units and were repeating, would fall within this cohort. Although the questionnaire did not specifically seek to separate the responses of students who met this description, it was evident from qualitative comments that there were a small number of students who qualified. However, the vast majority would not have fallen within this cohort. Nevertheless, all students are familiar with the concept of both lecture and role-play and for that reason the following question was designed as the next best measure in the circumstances: ‘I think I gained a better understanding of basic negotiation theory and practice from Air Gondwana than I would have from a single one hour lecture and two unrelated role plays [which was the previous approach to teaching basic negotiation in Contracts A and Contracts B]’. A total of 92.7 per cent of students agreed or strongly agreed with the proposition, 57.8 per cent strongly agreeing. A bare eight students indicated a preference for a traditional form of instruction, perhaps reflecting their perceived best learning style.

Two other specific questions were also posed to measure the effectiveness of the program in these respects. The first addressed the program’s narrative-centred learning environment: ‘Air Gondwana provided a realistic setting for me to understand the principles of negotiation’. A total of 85.3 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this proposition. Only eight students did not find the program realistic whilst 12.5 per cent did not indicate a leaning either way.

Among the aspects most commonly identified in qualitative comments as being liked by students was the narrative running through the program, which they thought made the program engaging and interesting. For example, ‘Having a story to remember (along with characters) made learning more enjoyable and easy to remember’.

The second question addressed the ‘fun factor’: ‘I enjoyed using Air Gondwana’. Over three-quarters of the students indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed the program. That the program provided a fun way to learn, and the humour used in the program, also figured in the qualitative comments concerning aspects most liked by students.

Of those that responded that they did not enjoy the program or were neutral in their response, the majority seem to have been affected by the fact that the program was designed primarily for the QUT standard Windows PC environment, which posed difficulties in some cases for students having Apple Mac computers. Other students had difficulties with the drivers or firewalls in their own computers. These students were therefore put to the inconvenience of needing to access a different computer in order to access the program, and this detracted from their learning experiences. Mac compatibility was an issue flagged from the outset but, on technical advice, could not be addressed within the budget at this time. Development of the project in the future will address this issue.

A measure of the impact of the project on student learning is how well it has helped students to understand the application of theory to real-world practice situations. The following question was posed: ‘Air Gondwana helped me to understand the application of the principles of negotiation in

Practice’. A total of 90.5 per cent of students agreed or strongly agreed with this proposition, with only four students disagreeing or strongly disagreeing.

When combined with the very positive responses concerning attainment of a basic level of understanding of negotiation theory and practice, there is evidence of the program having a positive impact on student learning which should provide the foundation for further development in later units studied, in accordance with the law school graduate capabilities program. Students have been strongly encouraged to make appropriate entries concerning their understandings and their reflection in their Student e-Portfolios (an online resource allowing students to self-track their development and record their achievements) to reinforce this outcome.

Air Gondwana utilises different forms of technology to meet the challenges of teaching the theory and practice of negotiation skills to a large cohort of students studying full-time, part-time and externally. It provides an authentic learning experience through the use of a realistic story-line and practical fact scenarios which actively engage students and which make their learning fun.