To augment traditional lecture with instructional tools that provide options for content representation, learner engagement, and learning expression, we followed the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to design and implement a learning environment for teaching and learning in large lecture classes. To this end, we incorporated four carefully selected instructional tools (PowerPoint, lecture notes, clickers, and MindTap) in the proposed UDL environment for an introductory marketing class of over 600 students. Self-reported and objective measures were collected to assess the effectiveness of the UDL environment by evaluating its impact on perceived learning, satisfaction with the instructional tools, and actual learning. Our study aims to provide educators with suggestions on how to meet the needs of a diverse group of students in large lecture classes without compromising the quality of teaching and learning.
Business schools can increase their competitiveness by offering students intercultural skills development opportunities integrated into the traditional curricula. This article makes a contribution by proposing an approach to developing students’ cultural intelligence that is based on the cultural intelligence (CQ) model, experiential learning theory, and contact theory. This study empirically tests the effectiveness of the proposed approach by developing and conducting a cost-efficient, easy-to-implement experiential learning activity where marketing students and advanced English as a Second Language students interview each other about consumer behavior differences. The activity led to a perceived increase in cultural knowledge, motivation, and confidence in the students’ ability to communicate with people from other cultures. Overall, students deemed the activity a valuable part of their education. Students’ CQ was positively correlated with the self-reported (perceived) prior experience-based and studies-based intercultural competence. Compared with domestic students, international students scored higher only on the Cognitive dimension of CQ.
Marketing faculties, as well as business schools in general, are placing increasing importance on finding ways to better tie theoretical concepts to real-world situations. In the article that follows, we describe a project wherein students were given an opportunity to apply core consumer behavior concepts to a simulated advertising project with the aim to prevent suicide. A post hoc qualitative survey was conducted, and a series of propositions were generated. We propose that students have high levels of recall when studying in a real-world simulation. Additionally, our findings suggested that when students use core concepts in real-world simulation projects, they are able to later apply those concepts in actual real-world situations. Finally, we propose that simulations are an effective way of teaching sensitive subject matter.
Simulation games have become widespread in business courses, yet the understanding of their learning effects remains limited. The effectiveness of using simulation in marketing classes is not uniform, and not all students welcome it to the same extent. Drawing on a survey among 173 students engaged in a simulation game as part of a course in a 2-year business graduate program, we employ "expectation–confirmation theory" and the "unified theory of acceptance and use of technology" to develop a model to investigate the relation between Learner Satisfaction and Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy with a marketing simulation game. In addition, we examine the influence of Age, Gender, Course Type, Course Stage, and Recalled Performance. We report that Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy drive Learner Satisfaction. We also find Recalled Performance of students to be related to Learner Satisfaction. We discuss the implications of our results for the use of marketing simulation games in business programs in relation to experiential learning theory linking Learner Satisfaction to learning outcomes. In light of our results, instructors can affect the learning experience from simulation games by acting on Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy as antecedents of Learner Satisfaction.
Marketing instructors using simulation games as a way of inducing some realism into a marketing course are faced with many dilemmas. Two important quandaries are the optimal size of groups and how much of the students’ time should ideally be devoted to the game. Using evidence from a very large sample of teams playing a simulation game, the study described here seeks to answer two fundamental questions: What effects on performance does group size have? And, is it possible for groups to spend too much time on decision making? The results indicate that performance increases in line with group size until teams have five members, and then tapers off. Furthermore, performance is shown to rise as time spent on decision making increases, up to a point, after which additional time spent on the game is shown to detract from performance. Implications for marketing instructors are discussed.
Simulations are a form of competitive training that can provide transformational learning. Participants are pushed by the competition and their own desire to win as well as the continual feedback, encouragement, and guidance of a Business Coach. Simulations enable students to apply their knowledge and practice their business skills over and over. Taken all together, these conditions help students develop their competence in marketing and business. Competitive business simulations are inherently valuable learning experiences, but this potential can be greatly enriched. The purpose of this article is to summarize the development process of a modern business simulation, illustrating how a valued pedagogy can be enhanced through careful planning and thoughtful consideration of the goals, strategy, features, and benefits of the learning experience.
Although marketing education has seen a dramatic shift toward hands-on, experiential learning in recent years, the teaching of pricing has fallen behind complementary elements of the marketing mix in pedagogical execution. Although the teaching of pricing has shifted focus from economic-based models to value-based pricing in theory, available pedagogical tools for teaching value-based pricing are scarce. This article proposes and outlines an experiential class assignment that engages students in a real-world, applied, market exchange environment. While avoiding the inherent risks of using actual money for transactions, this assignment enables students to explore the consumer motivations and perceptions of value central to value-based pricing.
The use of student self-branding exercises in introductory marketing courses for undergraduate business programs has been growing in popularity due to a number of advantages for students. This article introduces implementation of the "Marketing Me" variant developed and used since 2013 by the authors, wherein alumni are brought in to engage with students in a simulated networking event context. This article shows results from postexercise surveys of both student and alumni participants indicating that this variant is strongly perceived to achieve two major goals: (a) enhance student understanding of segmentation, targeting, positioning strategies and (b) aid the students’ preparation for the job and career search processes.
Simulations offer engaging learning experiences, via the provision of feedback or the opportunities for experimentation. However, they lack important attributes valued by marketing educators and employers. This article proposes a "back to basics" look at what constitutes an effective experiential learning initiative. Drawing on the education literature, the article presents a set of propositions for the development of initiatives that deliver deep learning, promote engagement, and develop digital marketing and soft skills. The article notes the attributes of simulations that deliver effective experiential learning, but also where other formats may be superior to simulations, and advocates for an integrative approach. The article illustrates the application of these propositions, and integrative approach, to the development of a highly successful experiential learning initiative, the Google Online Marketing Challenge. The article concludes with the following recommendations for marketing educators engaged in experiential learning: students need to plan, execute, and assess their actions, which requires the provision of feedback mechanisms as part of the experience; the experience should be gamified to increase engagement; developers need to provide guidance and support, to both students and educators, to reduce extraneous cognitive load; the initiative needs to develop digital marketing literacy, as well as soft skills.
The responsibility for knowledge acquisition is increasingly being shifted to students though the utilization of experiential learning, teamwork, online, and flipped classroom pedagogies. Students are expected to enter the classroom prepared to engage in thoughtful knowledge application activities; however, many students have not adequately prepared, leading to minimal team contribution and learning. Readiness Assurance Testing is often implemented to help enforce student preclass preparation. These individual and group quizzing techniques can help motivate some students to keep current in the readings, but they do not assist students in learning comprehension. In order to improve learning comprehension and document preclass preparedness, an innovative note-taking method, Connected Notes, is offered as a way to assist students in recording, organizing, and connecting content in personally relevant ways. To improve comprehension and stimulate deeper levels of learning cognitive science supports the effectiveness of creating connections through multiple pathways. Students generate connections between chapter concepts and their consumer experiences, their careers, and company examples in preparation for team-based activities. Results from this study suggest the Connected Notes intervention improved the direct learning outcome (exams) while producing no negative effect on student evaluation of teaching.
This study examines how three factors affect students’ reactions to critical feedback on an assignment—amount of feedback (none vs. low amount vs. high amount), source of feedback (instructor-provided feedback vs. peer-provided feedback), and the situational context of the feedback (revision of paper is or is not possible). An incomplete 3 x 2 x 2 between-subjects experimental design was used to expose students enrolled in a basic marketing course to hypothetical feedback scenarios that varied the aforementioned factors. N-way analyses of variance and analyses of covariance revealed main and interaction effects. Students generally responded more negatively to higher versus lower amounts of critical feedback provided by the instructor. By contrast, when peers provided the feedback, students in most cases responded similarly to low and high levels of feedback, and they indicated that a high level of peer feedback was more helpful than a low level of peer feedback. Allowing students the opportunity to revise their work had two interesting effects. The revision opportunity made them feel more dissatisfied with their current grade, and it also made them more receptive to the critical feedback. The results suggest much promise for increased use of peer-provided feedback as well as judicious use of instructor-provided critical feedback.
Midterm student evaluations have been shown to be beneficial for providing formative feedback for course improvement. With the purpose of improving instruction in marketing courses, this research introduces and evaluates a novel form of midterm student evaluation of teaching: the online collaborative evaluation. Working in small teams, students comment on their course using an online collaborative document creation tool. Compared with a standard individual evaluation, the online collaborative evaluation was rated significantly higher by students in enjoyment, ease, and ability to provide useful feedback. In addition, comments yielded from the collaborative evaluation provided formative information that could be used to improve student learning. In a marketing class that emphasizes teamwork, the collaborative evaluation of teaching can reinforce the benefits of functioning well as a team, while providing useful information to the instructor to improve the course.
Sales competitions provide students with opportunities to apply their understanding of sales. Despite a long tradition of scholarship on sales role-plays, the answer to what drives student performance in sales competitions remains elusive. In this research, we examine how motivation (work engagement) and ability (cognitive aptitude and selling-related knowledge) affect student performance in sales role-play competitions. We also examine how success in sales role-plays engenders job attainment for the students. Using data from a sales competition held at a large public university in the United States, we provide empirical evidence that both motivation and ability affect sales performance. But, contrary to expectation, they have a substitution effect and not a complementary one. We also find evidence that success in sales role-plays translates into improved success in job interviews and that this effect is stronger for students with greater cognitive aptitude, that is, sales role-play performance complements the cognitive aptitude of the student to improve their mock interview performance.
This study combines the perspective of students (n = 137) and sales instructors (n = 248). It compares how well selling and sales management simulation games, case discussions, and traditional lectures are perceived to conform to the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. The study further compares each method’s performance on perceived learning outcomes. Differences between instructors who adopted a simulation game and nonadopters are investigated. Finally, we investigate the reasons why some instructors adopt and others choose not to adopt simulation games for their selling and sales management classes. We find that students consider simulation games more fun, but less useful than lectures, and about equally useful as case discussion. Computerized simulation games are less frequently used in sales education than in other business disciplines. The perceived lack of suitable games is the main reason why instructors do not adopt simulation games for sales education. Contrary to earlier speculation, prior professional work experience of the instructor is unrelated to simulation game adoption, and years of teaching experience is positively related to the use of simulation games.
The purpose of this research is to investigate the image of salespeople and of the selling function as perceived by business students across cultures. Of the several empirical investigations that exist in the sales literature, most are based on a single-country sample. This study extends previous knowledge on single-country perception of salespeople by conducting a quantitative survey of business students in Cameroon, France, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Substantial differences and similarities are found across countries on salesperson’s image, feelings in the presence of a salesperson, as well as the perception of a career in sales. They all appear to be influenced by cultural values. Several practical strategic implications are suggested, including examining cultural values to identify the origin of negative images, careful gatekeeping to promote professional positions, and supporting mobility of both students and faculty. Finally, limitations to the findings are presented with suggested future research directions.
More universities are incorporating sales content into their curriculums, and although the introductory courses in professional sales have much common ground and guidance from numerous professional selling texts, instructors teaching the advanced selling course lack the guidance provided by common academic tools and materials. The resulting potential variance in content and pedagogy in advanced selling courses makes comparing programs or assessing the relative preparedness of students coming from different universities challenging for recruiters, faculty, and students. A review of the syllabi of the instructors currently teaching the advanced selling course reveals common themes, content, and pedagogy that are helpful to instructors desiring to develop an advanced selling course or those currently teaching the course. A review of the common content of the advanced selling course and an argument for the need of the advanced selling course are provided, along with suggestions for developing the course with examples of various projects and pedagogy.
A new interactive computer simulation designed to teach sales ethics is described. Simulation learner objectives include gaining a better understanding of legal issues in selling; realizing that ethical dilemmas do arise in selling; realizing the need to be honest when selling; seeing that there are conflicting demands from a salesperson’s company, customers, and colleagues; and experiencing some of the challenges of selling. Assessment results suggest each objective was met, for both males and females. A description of how this and other simulations can be effectively used in sales courses is provided.
Many educators today emphasize student engagement and self-regulated learning, including giving students choices. However, research suggests that too much choice can have negative consequences such as feelings of stress and regret. An experimental design wherein students were offered different numbers of choice options when previewing, as in a syllabus or other course description, a major class project in a hypothetical Retailing Management course, examined the effects of within-course choice on perceptions of the course. The results indicate that, before they are required to engage in the course choices and make an actual decision, students prefer to have more choice. This is evidenced by their perceptions of the course’s desirability and value to their future careers, perceptions of the quality and fairness of the course instructor, and emotional reactions to the level of choice. However, when required to engage in the choice, students responded more positively to having fewer choices. Likewise, students not as interested in marketing responded more positively to having less choice. These results are more in line with findings from past research, showing that more choice can have a negative effect.
Sales education programs are undergoing rapid growth and dynamic change as more business and other undergraduate students pursue sales jobs as desirable career entry points. The number of collegiate sales programs has grown dramatically over the past decade, and sales educators today are increasingly focused on teaching experientially. That is, they seek to link theory to industry practice to prepare students more effectively for in-demand sales careers. Sales knowledge and sales-related self-efficacy have been established clearly to be determinants of future sales performance in industry. This article is a first step in examining the role self-efficacy plays within the context of sales education. More than 500 students, who have completed or are currently enrolled in at least one sales course at one of approximately 20 colleges, completed an 85-item survey for this study. The responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. The authors recommend specific methods for sales educators to more effectively develop sales knowledge and sales-based self-efficacy so that students are well-prepared to "hit the ground running" in the early stages of their sales careers.
Colleges of business must meet assurance of learning requirements to gain or maintain AACSB accreditation under the new standards adopted April 8, 2013. Team skills are among the most important skills desired by recruiters, yet employers and scholars perceive that team skills are frequently deficient in college graduates. This article describes how a set of free web-based tools available at www.CATME.org allows colleges to collect data to determine whether their students are developing good team skills and demonstrate achievement for accreditation reviews for learning goals related to team skills. The tools, which were developed to support teamwork in college classes, allow instructors to easily collect, interpret, and share data about students and teams. We show how colleges that use the CATME system in all courses requiring teamwork could analyze the data to demonstrate that their programs develop students’ team skills. The appendix provides 13 examples of learning goals colleges could use, along with a method to demonstrate achievement for each, and a sample measurable program target. These examples relate to team skills such as working with teammates of diverse backgrounds, contributing effectively to teams, displaying good interpersonal skills, being able to evaluate teamwork, and recognizing team processes and outcomes.
This article proposes a theory-based contagious motivation model focusing on enhancing student perceptions of group projects and ultimately course satisfaction. Moreover, drawing from both pedagogical and organizational behavior literatures, a model is presented that ties together intrinsic motivation theory with social contagion and contextualizes these within the conceptual methodology of group projects in a classroom. The structural equation model is tested with an undergraduate student sample of 215 students and found to have adequate fit. The key implication of the model is that individual student motivation can be increased by fostering an active learning environment, and more importantly, group projects can create and foster positive motivation when properly implemented by educators.
A meta-analytic review of self-directed learning (SDL) research over 30 years, five countries, and across multiple academic disciplines is used to explore its relationships with five key nomologically related constructs for effective workplace learning. The meta-analysis revealed positive relationships between SDL and internal locus of control, motivation, performance, self-efficacy, and support. The use of an actual SDL project in an undergraduate sales management course and an MBA selling and sales management course is used to provide supporting evidence and practical advice for educators seeking to use SDL to promote lifelong learning skills in students.
This research investigates the reliability and validity of three major publications’ rankings of MBA programs. Each set of rankings showed reasonable consistency over time, both at the level of the overall rankings and for most of the facets from which the rankings are derived. Each set of rankings also showed some levels of convergent and discriminant validity, but each has room for improvement, particularly Businessweek, which relies heavily on subjective surveys of students and recruiters, and Financial Times, whose methodology may be simplified and streamlined, ceasing to measure facets that are empirically superfluous. Together the three publications blanket the student process—U.S. News & World Report captures incoming student quality clearly with GMAT scores, Businessweek captures whether the students are happy while at their respective business schools, and U.S. News captures salaries and Financial Times captures return on investment, as short-term and longer term indicators of graduates’ early career successes.
Creativity and marketing imagination are essential core competencies for marketers. Therefore, higher marketing education emphasizes creativity in several ways. However, assessing creativity and creative problem solving is challenging and tools for this purpose have not been developed in the context of marketing education. To address this gap, we analyze the use of Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy as an assessment tool in creative problem solving and in doing so develop an assessment framework by contextualizing SOLO taxonomy for client-based marketing development projects. We first introduce earlier literature on assessment and SOLO taxonomy. We then describe a client-based marketing course on creative problem solving. We use SOLO taxonomy to analyze the outcomes and development processes of six student projects and in doing so develop an assessment framework for creative problem solving. Finally, we give suggestions for teachers on how to enhance creative problem solving and its assessment in marketing classrooms.
The need to endow marketing graduates with skills relevant to employability grows ever more important. Marketing math and elementary financial understanding are essential employability skills, particularly given the contemporary emphasis on marketing metrics, but the evidence is that marketing graduates are often relatively weak in such skills. This article suggests that one educational strategy to improve numeracy and financial skills may be through the use of a marketing simulation game. Through the simulation game, students are exposed to marketing calculations and financial data in an engaging context that simulates the real world. It is hypothesized that marketing students’ numeracy and financial skills, and their self-efficacy with respect to marketing calculations, will improve following participation in a simulation game where numerical and financial analysis are necessary activities. Using a quasi-experimental research design, it is found that there are substantial and significant improvements in numerical and financial performance after participating in a simulation game, but that there is no improvement (and possibly a small decline) in self-efficacy related to these tasks. Marketing educators are advised that a marketing simulation game is a viable option to consider when seeking to improve students’ numeracy and financial skills.