Effect of Type of Curriculum on Educational Outcomes and Motivation Among Marketing Students With Different Learning Styles

Abstract

Using an active learning approach to motivate students to learn has been advocated by many educators. It has been an ongoing discussion on whether marketing educators should customize their teaching activities based on the learning styles found in their classes recently. This study uses a scale of learning styles that includes a measure of the degree of student autonomy from the instructor. Results from an experiment of marketing students indicate that courses using an active learning approach consistently receive significant higher ratings on learning outcomes and motivation measures than those using a passive learning approach for autonomous learners, but that there are few benefits for students who are low in autonomy. This suggests that though active learning assignments are very effective, they will not necessarily lead to positive outcomes for all types of learners.

Reflecting on experiential learning in marketing education

“…Published articles researching the effectiveness of experiential learning, describing experiential learning methods and offering advice to marketing educators interested in adopting experiential learning techniques have also featured in the other principal journals in the field, the Marketing Education Review and the Journal for the Advancement of Marketing Education (e.g., Greene, 2011;Pollack & Lilly, 2008;Young, Caudill, & Murphy, 2008); in management education journals (e.g., Brennan & Pearce, 2009;Camarero et al, 2010); and occasionally in general marketing journals particularly where a special issue is devoted to marketing education (e.g., Ardley & Taylor, 2010;Harker & Brennan, 2003). Where marketing educators and researchers mention underlying theories of learning upon which their experiential techniques are based, they refer most often to Kolb's experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984).…”

“…Where marketing educators and researchers mention underlying theories of learning upon which their experiential techniques are based, they refer most often to Kolb's experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984). Ardley & Taylor (2010) also cite the literature on tacit knowledge, arguing that where experiential learning involves real-world projects, students have the opportunity to learn tacit knowledge that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. However, one also gets the sense from reading this literature that some marketing educators regard it as self-evident that learning through experience is desirable, and that additional justification from theories of learning is not entirely necessary.…”

“…The measures used, although varying in detail, tend to concentrate on student satisfaction with the learning process, and student self-reports about how much they believe they learned (perhaps inviting them to mentally compare the experiential exercise with didactic approaches). Experiential learning techniques studied this way include: computer-based sales/marketing simulation games (Bobot, 2010;Ganesh & Qin, 2009;Vos & Brennan, 2010); live marketing projects conducted by students on behalf of real-world businesses (Ardley & Taylor, 2010;Camarero et al, 2010;Inks, Schetzle, & Avila, 2011); and, the development by students of realistic marketing plans for the launch of a new, viable business venture (Camarero et al, 2010). The evaluation of the learning achieved by the students as a result of participation in the experiential learning activity can be fairly cursory.…”

The Influence of Student Perceived Professors’ “Hotness” on Expertise, Motivation, Learning Outcomes, and Course Satisfaction

“…Questionnaire items measuring motivation to learn were derived from a scale in the pedagogical study by Ackerman and Hu (2009). This measure contained items such as "I was very motivated to learn the material associated with this class," "I thoroughly read every assigned chapter in this class," and "Relative to other classes I have taken, I worked more in this class" (Cronbach's α = .743).…”

Assessing students’ performance by measured patterns of perceived strengths: does preference make a difference?

“…Other studies show that students prefer courses in which they learn via projects and cases rather than lectures and tests (Ackerman and Hu 2011). Either result could be used as an argument for assessing students in ways they prefer, if you assume that students will perform better on assessments towards which they have positive affect (Ackerman and Hu 2011). Yet further studies show that students 'may rate a pedagogical experience as being highly effective when in fact it is not effective at all' (Bacon 2011, 355).…”