PBL Implementation of Computer Simulation in the Teaching of Strategic Management at Duy Tan University (P.1)
Abstract
Strategic Management is an important but difficult subject for business students at most universities. One reason is due to the complexity of its materials while another is the methodology being used to help students integrate business, accounting, finance and information systems knowledge to successfully complete the course. For years, computer simulations have been used to create a sense of reality to real-world practices for Strategic Management at many schools. Its effectiveness, however, is still in question. At Duy Tan University, we have run into the very same question due to the following reasons: Firstly, students complained that the simulation required a large volume of knowledge integration, making it hard for them to grasp the materials. Secondly, they complained that the computerized results presented might not have been objective, and some groups, who did not do much work but understood how the system worked, still won the game. Thirdly, a big question was raised as to whether they should consider the simulated game a problem or a project or simply, an experience. Last but not least, since the software is English-based, many students ran into problems understanding the game, and so, many of them feel uncomfortable with the use of computer simulation. As much as computer simulations have been praised as an innovative component in the Active Learning approach of many PBL-based programs, the above problems did show that the computer simulations themselves do not transform the nature or quality of our teaching. It is our specific teaching and learning settings and methodologies which make the difference. Through a series of observations and surveys over the years, our staff members have created a number of PBL-based tactics with the use of computer simulations in business and finance coursework, and those will be very much the focus of this paper.
Keywords: PBL standards, computer simulation, PBL implementation, strategic management, Duy Tan University
The teaching of Business Administration coursework in general sometimes appears to be vague and obscure to many people because of the many theories and concepts involved. Indeed, people sometimes question about what a college graduate in Business Administration actually get out of his or her four years of study apart from some presentation skills and a bunch of finance, human resource and marketing theories (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). The usual answer would be that a business graduate will possess an effective business mindset and strategic market viewpoints. Is that always true or it is more of an illusion for the majority of the business graduates? Frankly speaking, while it is true that some business graduates do actually develop an effective business mindset, the rest of them are likely to have no clear direction when they just get out of college (Bailey & Ford, 1996). The reason has to do with the fact that the college settings and class sizes usually do not allow for the development of real-world skillset in business for the majority of the students. How to fix this dilemma has become a constant challenge at many business schools (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). In this paper, we would discuss about the use of computer simulation in the Strategic Management course as part of our PBL effort at Duy Tan University to create more of a real-world study environment for our students and to help them develop essential business skillset. Coincidentally, Strategic Management seems to be the right course to test our effectiveness in teaching business because it integrates the knowledge of many fields in Business Administration like Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, Information Systems, etc. (Knotts & Keys, 1997) However, the reality of computer-simulation deployment at our school has showed a series of shortcomings in terms of students’ preparedness, their trust for the simulation results, their English skills required to understand the English-based simulation instructions and results, and their integration of different business knowledge for decision-making in the simulation. This paper, as a result, set out to determine whether by putting together a series of PBL-based tactics of team member assignment through skill screening, grading based on business scenario interpretation, English training for simulation and flexibility in the use of Vietnamese and international accounting/financial conventions will make a difference in helping students develop more of an integrative business mindset for Strategic Management.
At Duy Tan University, computer simulations have been used long before in certain chosen classes of Marketing, Financial Modeling, Hospitality Management, and Logistics. They were, however, not adopted on a large scale basis mostly because of the off-limit per-user license fees as well as the lack of qualified instructors to help run those simulations. The benefits of computer simulations were also in question by our students and instructors for a number of reasons:
• The lack of sufficient information and training for the computer simulations usually makes the students (and even some instructors) unprepared and confused when they start running the simulations.
• Most students do not trust that computer simulations actually simulate real-world activities of the market. Students generally believe that the simulations follow some numeric formulas (Knotts & Keys, 1997), and if anyone can recognize those formulas, it will be easy for them to win the simulations.
• Almost all computer simulations used (at Duy Tan University) are English-based, and this presents certain difficulties to students who are not proficient in English.
• Almost all computer simulations (at Duy Tan University) adopt Western or American conventions in accounting, finance, and budgeting so that our Vietnamese students usually have to spend more time learning those new conventions.
Given the shortcomings identified above, when we started with the new simulation of Strategic Innovation Simulation (by Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen) (Shih, et al., 2008) for our Strategic Management course, certain PBL-based approaches were adopted to help improve on the effectiveness in the use of our computer simulations:
• A preliminary test of skills and knowledge in accounting, finance, marketing and human resource is designed to assess students’ capability. While students will not be eliminated from the course if they fail the test, the test serves as a reminder to them that they need to review on previous business skills and knowledge learned before. In addition, the test results serve as the basis for instructors to assign team members so that the overall capabilities of different teams in the class are on the same par.
• Grading for the simulation is not entirely based on the simulation results but rather also on the explanations of why students make certain decisions in the simulation and how they interpret the subsequent simulation results in their reports and final presentation (30 minutes). This helps relieve the pressure and tension posed by the former approach that if students could not understand how the simulation worked, they would fail the class.
• A vocabulary of prevalent terms and keywords used in the simulation is provided to students on the school’s eLearning platform to help with problems in their English proficiency. Video-based instructions and online support staff for English used in the simulation are also provided.
• Students are allowed to process the simulation results for either international or Vietnamese accounting/financial convention in their reports. Also, in order to encourage students to learn new accounting/financial conventions, bonus points are provided to teams which adopt international conventions in their reports. While this effort is beneficial to the students, it requires our use of additional teaching assistants in validating the report results under different conventions.
Still, how can we be sure that those efforts above are really PBL-based approach? By matching up those efforts with the PBL standards, we will be able to evaluate the correlations amongst them, as followed:
PBL Standards |
PBL Efforts for Computer Simulation |
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Preliminary test of business skills and knowledge for review and team assignment |
Grading based on logical business decisions and explanations/ interpretations |
Direct and indirect support for English use in simulation |
Acceptance of different accounting/ financial conventions and Incentives for learning of new conventions |
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1. Is organized around an open-ended driving question or challenge |
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2. Creates a need to know essential content and skills |
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3. Requires inquiry to learn and/or create something new |
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4. Requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication, often known as “21st Century Skills” |
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5. Allows some degree of student voice and choice |
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6. Incorporates feedback and revision |
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7. Results in a publicly presented product or performance |
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Strong correlation |
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Good correlation |
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