The Challenge for Business and Management Degree Courses in the 21st Century
Assessing the current state of evaluation methods applied in business schools.
The twenty first century has been a period of major change for business organisations and industries. This has led to an ever greater demand for managers with not only traditional subject knowledge and technical skills but also individual business skills. To meet these demands, business schools are under pressure to think innovatively and adapt their courses appropriately.
For an undergraduate degree in business management, the structure of the degree, the subjects covered, the teaching methods used, and the whole student learning experience should be considered. Innovation, however, poses a major challenge for researchers and teachers alike. How can the effect of an innovation be measured or assessed?
The paper Pedagogy and Evaluation: The Challenge for Business and Management Degree Courses in the 21st Century assesses the current state of evaluation methods applied in Business Schools. Student feedback has emerged as the dominant approach, but application is still at a fairly basic level. A case example of evaluating the new first year re-design of the business management degree at City’s Business School is used to illustrate the practical issues involved. The study finds that student feedback offers some indication of the success of the redesigned degree, but it does not entail any constructive dialogue between students and lecturers, and students often lack the skills to frame feedback constructively.
The paper Pedagogy and Evaluation: The Challenge for Business and Management Degree Courses in the 21st Century discusses the implications of changes in the business context for the evaluation methods used in Business Schools, and is available for download at City Research Online.
