scholarly journals Students� Perceptions of the Use of English in a Core Business Subject for First-Year Business Students

Author(s):  
Hannah Y. Lai ◽  
King-Wah Pang
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Starr-Glass

Purpose This study aims to reflect on the dominance of a narrowly focused analytical approach within business schools, which provides an artificially fractured and disjointed understanding of the contextual complexities and interconnectedness that students will encounter in the future. This approach unnecessarily constrains sensemaking and inhibits creative response to future social and organizational complexity. As business schools and their graduates come under sustained scrutiny and criticism, it perhaps appropriate to reexamine and reframe their analytical bias. Design/methodology/approach The central direction taken in this study is that of critical reflection on the present author’s practice and experience in teaching undergraduate economics and accounting. Although the analysis may have limited generalizability, it is hoped that it may prove of interest and value to business school educators. Findings The preferential business school reliance on analytical perspectives suggest that they fail to appreciate the nature of business, its embeddedness in broader society and the competencies required by undergraduates and graduates. This study argues that an emphasis on holistic systems, synthetic fusion and an appreciation of complexity – rather than a reductive analytical agenda – might benefit business schools, their graduates and society at large. Originality/value This study provides an original, albeit personal, insight into a significant problem in business education. It offers original perspectives on the problem and presents faculty-centered suggestions on how business students might be encouraged and empowered to see quality as well as quantitative perspectives in their first-year courses.


Author(s):  
Daniel A. Glaser-Segura ◽  
Suzanne D. Mudge ◽  
Constantin Bratianu ◽  
Ivona Orzea

The Bologna Process instituted measures promoting common curriculum throughout Europe with three-year standards established for Bachelor programs in economics, humanistic and positive sciences, and four-year standards for engineering sciences. Dramatic reductions were made to programs resulting in students moving into the workforce at a faster pace and with fewer academic credits. Questions existed as to whether three-year programs were sufficient for professional identity development. Professional identity, a system of attributes and values one has about self in relation to professional role, is essential for professional culture integration. This chapter employs a quasi-experimental design to compare professional identity development of Romanian business students ranging from first- through third-year using 2012 data and fourth-year students using 2007 data. Findings reveal professional identity within post-Bologna Process programs rose from first year to second but fell in the end-of-program third year. Data from pre-Bologna Process programs show higher measures of professional identity for end-of-program fourth-year students. Interpretations are provided and student workforce readiness discussed.


Author(s):  
Monica D. T. Rysavy ◽  
Russell Michalak ◽  
Kevin Hunt

This chapter describes how the researchers at a small private Master's level college examined how different delivery modes—face-to-face (F2F), hybrid, and online instruction—may impact first-year students' perceptions of their information literacy (IL) skills compared to their test-assessed information literacy skills using the students perception of information literacy-questionnaire (SPIL-Q) and information literacy assessment (ILA) instruments. These instruments were developed and deployed to international graduate business students in two previous studies: Michalak and Rysavy and Michalak, Rysavy, and Wessel. The students (n=161) in this study were enrolled in a first-year English composition course in the Spring 2017 semester. This iteration achieved an overall response rate of 87.04% (n=141). Overall, results demonstrated the greatest achievement were demonstrated by students in hybrid course sections.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1616654
Author(s):  
Anne Gleeson ◽  
Greg Fisher ◽  
Saib Dianati ◽  
Nicholas Smale ◽  
Luís Tinoca

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melany Hebles ◽  
Concepción Yaniz-Álvarez-de-Eulate ◽  
Mauricio Jara

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of a classroom application of the cooperative learning (CL) methodology on nine dimensions of business students’ teamwork competence (TC).Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a quasi-experimental pre-post design with a previous cohort as control group (first-year students from the year prior to treatment application), applying treatment to a sample of 228 first-year students in a School of Economics and Business at a Chilean University (114 as treatment and 114 as control).FindingsThe authors’ results show that CL had a positive, significant influence on five dimensions of TC: collective efficacy, planning, goal setting, problem solving and conflict management.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper upholds the importance and effectiveness of CL in developing TC. However, the evidence suggests that the effectiveness of the CL methodology was limited to development and improvement of less complex dimensions of TC. More complex dimensions require a longer period of time to be developed.Practical implicationsThis research is an important contribution to the design and implementation of appropriate methodologies for developing a widely needed area of competence in the workplace, considering its multidimensional nature, whether in academia or business.Originality/valueThis is the first study to seek empirical evidence that would link the CL methodology with TC. In addition, it fills a gap in the literature on the development of TC in its multiple dimensions. It particularly addresses the training of business professionals.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Thomas

ABSTRACT The current study investigates how a university accounting education affects the rationales used by accounting and first-year business students in making ethical decisions, the level of deliberative reasoning they employ, and their ethical decisions. Senior accounting students (with approximately four accounting courses to complete) were found to exhibit higher deliberative reasoning, make more frequent use of post-conventional modes of deliberative reasoning, and make more ethical decisions than first-year accounting students. These results suggest that a university accounting education has a positive effect on deliberative reasoning, on the use of post-conventional modes of deliberative reasoning, and on ethical decisions. There was no difference between the level of deliberative reasoning and ethical decisions of first-year accounting and first-year business students, but there were differences in their modes of deliberative reasoning. These results suggest that first-year accounting and first-year business students may make ethical decisions differently, implying the need for a different emphasis when teaching ethics to these two groups of students.


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