Abstract:

The educational innovation addresses the strengthening of the 'Food Design' sub-competency among undergraduate Food Engineering students, specifically focusing on how technical design quality is significantly influenced by the precision of initial requirements obtained from consumer interviews. A pedagogical gap arises when students lack formal skills to extract reliable insights, leading to inaccuracies that compromise product viability and market acceptance. To bridge this gap, conversational skills training was implemented to improve the students' capability to capture the strategic insights that guide technical design.

The methodology employed a quasi-experimental design with non-probabilistic convenience sampling. The experimental group consisted of seventh-semester students (August-December 2025), while control groups were composed of students from previous academic terms. Initially, students conducted interviews with real users without prior training to establish a baseline. Subsequently, students received training in the behavioral criteria of the Conversational Skills Rating Scale (CSRS; Canary & Spitzberg, 1987) as part of the intervention. Following this instruction, a second phase of field interviews was executed to evaluate the training's impact on data quality. Interviews were recorded and evaluated using a triangulated framework consisting of student self-assessment, peer co-evaluation, and teacher evaluation based on specific CSRS criteria.

Comparative analysis revealed that post-test scores showed a statistically significant increase, confirming that the intervention effectively enhanced the execution of precise, structured consumer interviews. Recorded interactions from both the pre and post-test phases were processed using AI-assisted analysis (ATLAS.ti), providing a standardized and consistent framework to compare the quality of gathered insights.

Students reported significant differences in the depth and accuracy of consumer needs identified post-training. These insights directly served as the foundation for product development, where subsequent consumer validation confirmed that food products developed by the experimental group achieved significantly higher sensory evaluation scores than those from control groups. This result suggests that the training potentially contributed to a superior understanding of consumer needs and a more precise alignment with user requirements

Student experience and engagement were evaluated using the User Experience Questionnaire Short (UEQ-S; Laugwitz et al., 2008) and an IFE-adapted version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2002). Results revealed that students perceived video recording and conversational analysis as a significant workload increase compared to their original intuitive approach. While participants recognized the utility and transversal value of conversational training for their professional development, UWES scores showed high variability across groups, directly linked to the excessive logistical demands of file processing and data analysis. This operational inefficiency impacted students' vigor and dedication. Consequently, while conversational skills training based on the CSRS proved effective for technical outcomes, student engagement remained highly sensitive to the logistical burden of the evaluation and data management process.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Educational Innovation, Conversational Skills, Artificial Intelligence.