Pedro Arriagada S. Ph.D. Professor Business Economics Universidad del Desarrollo. Case Study. October 2010

Transcription

1 7.08. Experiential Learning, Its importance in Business Education Pedro Arriagada S. Ph.D. Professor Business Economics Universidad del Desarrollo Case Study October

2 Abstract The main objective of this paper is to show Universidad del Desarrollo Business School experience with the so called Co Oop project through which the students interact with firms in their formal learning process. It is also an attempt to prove the hypothesis that experiential learning is as important as cognitive or theoretical learning in business schools education. After five years of experience and cohorts of aprox. 250 students in the Co Oop model, UDD s model show that students that went through the program do much better in formal and theoretical courses than students that did not do the program. At the same time, the experience show that the model requires different kind of teachers and a whole different way to administer and supervise the learning process. This paper is factual oriented; therefore its predicted potential is limited. Its originality is very high given that at professional educational level is the only experience in the country. Also, it introduces the innovation of week to week interactions with firms, rather than a sequential process whereby the students spend one semester in school and then one semester working, which is the experience of business schools in the United States. Business education, Co Oop model, experiential learning, entrepreneurship,. 1502

3 Sumario El principal objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar la experiencia de la escuela de negocios de la Universidad del Desarrollo con su modelo de Co Educación, a través del cual los alumnos interactúan con empresas como parte integrante de su malla curricular. Asimismo, pretende reforzar la hipótesis que el aprendizaje práctico es al menos igual de importante que el aprendizaje teórico en la formación de alumnos de negocios. Después de cinco años de experiencia, con grupos de aproximadamente 250 alumnos, la experiencia muestra que los alumnos que pasan por este proceso rinden mejor que los que no lo hacen en sus cursos teóricos. También, muestra que este modelo de enseñanza requiere de tutores, además de profesores y que su supervisión administrativa es mucho más compleja. Este trabajo es factual, por lo que su capacidad de predicción es limitada. Es muy original pues la experiencia de la UDD es única en lo que respecta a la formación profesional en Chile. También introduce la innovación de hacer trabajar a los alumnos un día a la semana durante su semestre académico, distinto a lo que hacen escuelas de negocios en Estados Unidos que secuencialmente hacen que el alumno estudie un semestre y luego trabaje otro semestre. Educación de Negocios, Modelo de Coeducación, Emprendimiento, Aprendizaje Práctico In situ 1503

4 1. Cognitive and emotional learning Most of us learn through a rational mental process. We are subject to process information that we get from different sources, like someone lecturing in front of us in a classroom, or reading a textbook or other written material, or discussing a subject matter with other students and professors. That is what we call cognitive learning. Some students are better prepared than other students to absorb this process of learning. This could be for several reasons: better ability to read, better ability to concentrate on abstract material, better ability to be focus minded, better quantitative preparation, and so on. On the contrary there are students that struggle through this process of cognitive learning. It is not necessarily related to their IQ levels but to the fact that they find it harder to concentrate, they have a more diverse state of mind, they act or rely more on visual memory or other related matters. Emotional learning refers to the process by which we learn with our heart. In most cases this learning comes from our own personal experiences or with situations that have affected us personally. For example, how does a child learn how to ride a bicycle?. The father may have given him some personal instructions that the kid processed cognitively in his mind. But those instructions did not mean much until he experienced them personally when sitting on the bike. The matter of balance, speed, turning, breaking and so on will become clear to him only through his personal experience. 1504

5 All of us are subject to both learning experiences. As above mentioned, some of us are very good for cognitive learning while others are very good on experiential or emotional learning. Of course, we can not go with only one way of learning, but in most cases who is weak on cognitive learning is strong in experiential learning and vice versa. In business education as well as in most scientific oriented subject matters, educators had emphasized cognitive education far beyond experiential learning. This is also the case for most of the learning process we are subject in basic, middle and high school education. More than understanding why has it been that way, the question is why have we neglected the importance of experiential learning. First of all we can state that experiential learning is hard to formalize and treat in a massive way. Is a more person to person experience because everyone will react in a different way to the same experience. On the contrary, cognitive learning is easy to structure, formalize and transfer to a class of students. We could also say that there is a body of knowledge that is easier to transfer in a cognitive way, like mathematics. Others will state that experiential learning is no subject to generalizations and therefore will always stay as a personal experience. 1505

6 The basic and foremost hypothesis stated here is that cognitive learning is a necessary but not sufficient way to succeed in the learning process in business education and that experiential learning has been neglected to a big extend. More than that, the hypothesis here is that experiential learning will strongly enhance and improve cognitive learning in every subject matter, more so in social sciences, and particularly in undergraduate business education. They can act together in a very productive way if done correctly. A good example of the above statement is the case of medicine schools. From the very early stages of learning the student is faced with solid and complex matters like anatomy, biology, physics and other scientific areas where they encounter several ways of cognitive learning. But at the same time, also from the very early stages they start their experiential learning by visiting hospitals and clinics, interacting with the working world of medicine. In such a way they experience by themselves the nature and core of the profession. They smell hospital smells, they see the faces of patients, and they feel the emotions and fears of people. In their case this part of the learning process is as important if not more than the conceptual learning of anatomy, biology and physics. That is why they spend half of the day in the classroom and half of the day on the field. In business education the balance has been 90% cognitive learning and luckily 10% experiential learning, and this last part done in a very imperfect way. Some schools will state that their student do summer jobs or working internships. It may even be a requirement for graduation, but the students will say that if done, they were a very minor part of their learning equation. Most of their learning process took place inside a classroom and in the library, reading books, cases and other material. 1506

7 The question is open: why have we almost completely neglected experiential learning in business education? 2. Business Education in Chile Business education in Chile is rather a new phenomenon. It is not until the late 50 s that both traditional universities, Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile started formally the education of managers in what is now known in School of Business and Economics. Shortly before a private effort lead by Mr. Pedro Ibañez following the will of his father Adolfo Ibañez, started a School of Business that lead to the Escuela de Negocios de Valparaíso of Fundación Adolfo Ibañez, now known as Universidad Adolfo Ibañez. Before that time, managers came either from Law Schools, Engineering Schools or Schools of Commerce. As can be seen the initiative came from a business person wanting to train his own managers and from young faculty members that were exposed to business and economics education in The Chicago University. The structure of business education was set on a pyramid way with the basic knowledge of accounting, economics, management and quantitative skills on its base. From there the instruction of functional aspects like finance, marketing, human resources, operations and son were set. At the top more generic subjects like strategy and business policies. 1507

8 The example and the model was thereafter followed by many others and there is hardly any public or private university in Chile today that is not imparting a Business Education degree known in Chile as Ingeniero Comercial. We can summarize this educational model in the following way: Rigorous and conceptual oriented with its basic roots in economics based on class work participation and with a traditional lecturing teaching format. Based on the learning of conceptual basics in economics, accounting, calculus and from there the functional areas of business, i.e. marketing, finance, human resources and operations. Later, the introduction of strategy and more sophisticated applications of the functional business tools. This model has evolved through out the years, with not many significant changes. The most important ones being: The introduction of the case method as a teaching methodology following the Harvard Business School model. The introduction of soft skills aspects such as leadership, coaching, negotiations, and others with some changes in the teaching methods using field work as a complement of traditional class work. The introduction of general knowledge oriented subjects in the curricula with the purpose to give students a wider education. This model of Business Education has had advantages and disadvantages. Among the first ones we can state: 1508

9 a solid conceptual education for students a five year intensive program Among the main disadvantages we can state: The introduction of sophisticated conceptual material far beyond the capabilities of students. The introduction of concepts and material far beyond the needs of the labour market for recent graduates in business. The lack of working skills It could be stated that most programs require for graduation a number of hours of work internships mostly done as summer jobs. This has been a very imperfect way to include experiential learning in the process. This internships are done without any academic supervision and on the company side also with very little structure and sophistication. 3. The competition Partly, because of the weaknesses listed above and more than anything the distance between the needs of the labour market and the characteristics of the Ingeniero Comercial, other professionals became competition when hiring came about. Inside Engineering schools an industrial engineer was developed, which somehow attracted the same applicants of business schools. They could also develop the skills to perform functional areas like operations and finance and has solid conceptual background in basic sciences. Also they had a better feeling of factory grounds and therefore were better suited to work on manufacture. 1509

10 On the other hand, Phsycology schools moved from clinic work to organizations and equipped their graduates to perform in human resources departments. Having said that, Ingenieros Comerciales remained preferred for sales and commercial departments performing marketing functions. It must be said that all the above were trained with the same biased towards cognitive learning with very little participation of experiential or emotional learning. Above all that, the emerging of MBA programs permitted that many more professionals coming from different initial degrees started competing with the Ingenieros Comerciales, with the advantage of more experience and working background. The matter of the fact is that Business Schools at undergraduate levels followed the roots of the traditional programs and turned the Ingeniero Comercial degree in somehow a commodity with most programs looking very similar. The main distinction came from the brand value and the quality of faculty. All the programs were class room based, cognitive oriented, lecture delivered. 4. Firm s perceptions Ingenieros Comerciales had made quite an important contribution to the Chilean business sector both public and private. The modernization of the Chilean economy could not have been possible without the help of managers that transformed firms of all sizes and made them competitive. 1510

11 The sophistication of the business world required sophisticated marketing, finance and operations as well as an efficient management of human resources. There is no doubt that Chilean business schoolshave been a key factor to support the change. At the same time, gradually the working place required more than good and efficient technicians that could work well with business tools. The market place started demanding people that could effectively work within teams, people who could be good entrepreneurs within the organization, people that could cooperate and think in more than one dimension. One of the complaints that firm s had about recent undergraduates from business schools was that although they were well equipped with knowledge and concepts, they were very poor understanding the working place. They had very little if any working experience at all and that they were trained far beyond the capacities that they needed at entry levels. The consequence was that recent graduates got frustrated very easily when in the working place, jobs changes too often, and they were too theoretical. On the other hand in most cases summer jobs provided by companies to business students were not achieving at all the purpose of experiential learning as an integral part of the curricula. Students worked for a month during the summer without any form of academic supervision and sometimes companies did not know very well what to do with the students. Summer jobs became favours to friends and family who needed a job for sons and daughters who needed this as a requirement for graduation. 1511

12 5. The UDD experience UDD started in 2005 the first experiment of experiential learning in business in Chile, breaking through a long tradition as exposed before. In order to do that several pieces had to be put together. The most important being: a revision of the Ingeniero Comercial curricula with the purpose of preparing the student to enter the working world from the very beginning of their education. This revision meant an exercise to simplify the curricula in order to leave the basics and build upon them the functional areas and finally the vertical management skills. The inclusion of faculty to the changes so that experiential learning could be completely merged with the cognitive learning students gets in the classroom. This becomes increasingly important throughout the students life cycle in School. The inclusion of firms that could participate in the first stages of the program and that would be willing to accept first year students and go through a trial and error process together with the School. They were to be our field clinics in comparison with medical schools. The full commitment with the project from faculty and administration plus the achievement of the three elements mentioned got UDD started with the cohort of 130 students that began the program in

13 The first step was to implement during the first two years of study, or what is called the bachelors state, three experiential based courses. The first on entrepreneurship, the second being the basic introductory course of management and the third the second course of management. The purpose being to transform the typical courses on management taught in every business school, from cognitive learning to experiential learning. The students got divided in groups of five students each with specific firm assigned to each team. Each firm assigned a mentor that help students to achieve what was needed either finding information or talking to people inside the firm to find proper answers to their questions. Each team reported weekly to the academic mentor according to a pre fixed schedule through 20 to 30 minutes sessions. During those sessions students got evaluated according to content and other issues like quality of presentation, use of professional language, quality of back up material or preps, team work and so on. Also they were evaluated by a one page minute that they had to write summarizing the discussion where grammar, synthesis abilities and use of written language was taken in consideration. By the end of this first two years of study, there was expected that besides the knowledge of the basic language of business learned mostly on traditional courses of math., economic principles and accounting, students had gained working tools and a hand understanding of how firm s work. Also learn the concrete application of language in real business issues and more than anything they would have the chance to interact with their future working environment 1513

14 understanding the people issues and dilemmas. At the same time, they would clearly understand some business working codes such as punctuality, flexibility, respect to others and so on. By the beginning of their third year at school, the student takes a temporary job of 10 hours a week in one of the companies associated to the program. The company is assigned by the School and together with each company the job responsibilities are determined. If in the previous stage the field work done by students was a complement to their work done in School and very much guided by an academic tutor, now in this stage the student becomes formally employed earning a nominal salary and responds to a person inside the company as any other employee. The 10 working hours of the week become the core and pivotal of his or her education. During this stage an academic tutor leads each student throughout the whole academic year. He gives the students his personal guidance and serves as the link between the students work and the functional courses they are taking. It might be that the student is involved in post sales in a retail store and bring back to his marketing class issues involved with customers satisfaction or bring to his operations class issues related to delivery. The academic tutor maintains a close relationship with each student boss to keep track of his or her performance at work. Each student stays in the same company for one academic year. During their fourth year of study he then goes to another company and works with another academic tutor. The idea is for 1514

15 the student to get two different working experiences and in companies of different business sectors. If, for example, during the third academic year the work was at a retail company, during the fourth year he might go to a commercial bank. He or she gets to see two different worlds, with different cultures. At the same time he will perform different tasks, some in direct relationship with customers, some related to back office operations, some focused on analysis of data and also some related to physical on the floor tasks. When UDD started with this new program in 2005, the incoming students started their experiential learning in the way related. At the same time in order to learn the operations and dilemmas of the second stage, third and fourth year students and several companies were chosen for them to work ten hours a week. An academic tutor took care of the students in this pilot project. Beginning 2007, when a number of the 2005 class started their third year of study, another group of students started working ten hours a week in six different companies. In august of 2007 another group of students of the 2005 class started working. Until now, 30 students went through the pilot project for one academic semester and 50 students of the 2005 class completed the two years of experiential learning in companies, 80 students of the 2006 class and 100 students of the 2007 class, are going through their second and first year of experiential learning in more than 30 companies. Five academic tutors have been involved and more than 80 companies have so far participated. Even though there has not been enough time to adequately evaluate the program, the evidence is leading towards the following preliminary conclusions: 1515

16 The second stage of the process, which is when the students are working ten hours a week, is easier to administer than the first stage when first and second year students are doing different things for firms as part of their three experiential courses. This is because of many reasons. The companies do not see much of a benefit to have first and second year students dealing with them. Students work in groups of five which gives an incentive for the easy riders, the follow up of the students needs much more structure. On the contrary, when the student is working ten hours a week, the company gets to see the benefits of having them involved and the one to one relationship with the academic tutor is much more productive. A one year time span for the second stage is much better than the one semester for the pilot project. There is an accommodation time when the student start working. Its time varies but is usually between three to six weeks (thirty to sixty hours). During that time the student gets to know the working place, the boss, the nature of the responsibilities involved. The company accept the student, understanding the purpose of the program and the academic tutor is able to know each student on a personal basis and how to help him in the best way. Once this period of time is gone, the student starts to be productive and more autonomous. Whatever the job or task assigned to the student, the responsibility of the academic tutor is to help him relate to the functional courses. As the marketing, human resources, finance and operation courses are taught during the third year at School, during the first year of temporary work the students become very active bringing their work experience into the classroom. They want to share their experience and learn from classmates experiences. The program has permitted simulate a graduate course environment into undergraduate education. 1516

17 The working experience enables the students relate emotionally to the subject matters seen in class work. That is, topics such as organizational conflicts, culture, incentives, visual marketing become very real to them, because they have seen them at work. The concepts and tools to analyze them become real and tangible to students. They move from conceptualization to understanding. This is achieved much better at undergraduate level through this program than through the case analysis method, which remains to the student as an external and abstract matter. The experience the students get in the working place help them mature and understand the real world. Getting to work on time, knowing new people and other places around the city, dealing with customers and fellow workers, help them to overcome their insecurities, and to know themselves, open their minds. For most of them these aspects of the learning process are what is the most valuable of the whole experience. The value of changing the students to another company during their fourth year of study to give them a different working experience remains open. By the end of 2008, almost 80 students will have completed one year of work and will be ready to change to another company. It might be possible that some of the companies may like their students to stay for another year. This will be a sign of student recognition but will prevent the student from having another working experience. Faculty is recognizing the value of experiential learning in undergraduate business studies. We have compared the learning experience in the same Human Resource course of a cohort of students that participate in the program and that are therefore working the 10 hours a week with 1517

18 another cohort of students that are not in the program. The difference in performance is significant in favour of the first, not only in the quality of discussions in the classroom but also in the mid term and final exams grades. The credentials of the academic tutor are essential. They do not correspond to the typical tenior faculty member, but they have to be recognized in the business world in such a way that the tutor will not only be in the position of personally advising students under his mentoring but will also open doors to the students in the business world. An important outcome of the program is that companies that had good experiences with students may offer them a permanent job after finishing their fourth year of study. The pilot project performed with 30 students, which worked 10 hours a week for one semester, during 2005 and 2006, gave as a result a permanent employment offer to half of the students. Most of the 2005 class students did finish their two years of experiential learning and are taking their last elective courses before graduation. Almost half of them are formally employed in jobs with flexible hours. Some of them in the same firms where they did their experiential learning. 6. Open questions As this project is yet work in progress there are still many unresolved issues that remain to be answered. Here are what we believe are the most important ones and on which we have to monitor closely. Transfer of content: as this project meant a redefinition of curricula in order to open space to the experiential process of learning including the 10 weekly hours of temporary work, some sacrifices had to be made in terms of content included in the span of courses. The idea was to leave during the first two years the contents of basic business language and during the last two 1518

19 years the contents of functional areas plus some vertical and cross functional contents such as strategy. As said before, the assumption being that students at this stage are not prepared nor mentally mature to absorb sophisticated conceptual material. Also, that the experiential part of the program was more than a compensation for the sacrifices in content. Companies commitment: an essential part of the success of the program is to assure and motivate companies commitment. As said, during the first two years of study students use companies to get information and need some companies executive time to explore and understand the information required. At this point companies have very little to gain. During the third and fourth year of study when students become temporary workers then companies start benefiting from the program. In the beginning we had to overcome a company resistance because of bad experiences with students doing summer jobs. Fortunately the response so far has been very satisfactory with the number of companies involved in the program increasing and the number of students per company also growing. Students commitments: the experience is very different for different students. For some of them has become an extraordinary learning experience. They has not only grown in knowledge but more than anything in maturity and personality. They have learned how to overcome frustrations, how to deal with job formalities, how to respond to a boss, how to interact with working mates. For others has been interesting but not that important. They wanted to perform tasks of managers while they got more administrative assignments, they were not prepared to overcome the frustrations that come on the daily work. For a few, it was a bad experience. A few examples of students were nor at all prepared to assume the responsabilities of the job, were a few actually fired from their jobs. 1519