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The Journal of Commerce, Vol. 4, No. 1,ISSN: 2218-8118, 2220-6043Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, PAKISTAN

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ACTIVITY BASED LEARNING: AN EFFECTIVE MODEL FORBUSINESS SCHOOLS

N. Santosh Ranganath1

Abstract

Activity-based learning is a successful teachingmodel in the field of Management, Medicine,

Engineering and Science, and it has recentlyfound its way to business schools. At its core,this approach provides a way to integratelearning within students knowledge, and, byexposing them to a variety of activities. There is

growing corporate demand for pedagogicaltechniques that focus on their immediate

problems rather than on lofty theories or evencase studies which leads to ABL approach. Inthis paper, it is argue that an active interactionwith a learning object in activity driven oractivity-based learning enables construction oflearners mental models. The goal of activity-based learning is for learners to constructmental models that allow for 'higher-order'

performance such as applied problem solvingand transfer of information and skills. This

paper focuses on the crucial model of learningobjects with activity-based learning.

Keywords: ABL, Strategy, Management, ProfessionalSkills, Operations Research approach.

INTRODUCTIONActivity Based Learning (ABL) in Businessenables managers to understand product andcustomer profitability, the cost of businessprocesses, and how to improve them. Sinceconventional management accounts andstandard costing systems do not provide thisinformation, it is perhaps surprising that ABL isnot more widely used. Unlike manymanagement techniques, research shows that 80per cent of companies that have employedactivity-based techniques found them to be

successful. Learning is biochemical activity inthe brain; a relatively permanent change inbehavior; information processing; awakening,remembering and recalling; social negotiation;

1 Faculty Member, Department of Commerce and

Management Studies, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar University,Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA. Contact:[email protected]

critical thinking; knowledge construction;conceptual change; meaning making; activity;turning perceptions to environmental

affordances; and learning is chaos. These aremerely alternative conceptions of learning. Noneof them is completely correct; all aredescriptions of different aspects of learning.Activity-based learning is a successful teachingmodel in the field of Management, Medicine,Engineering and Science, and it has recentlyfound its way to business schools. At its core,this approach provides a way to integratelearning within students knowledge, and, byexposing them to a variety of activities, helpsthem learn how to learn. Due to the high degree

of interaction in ABL, essential instructor skillsinvolve facilitating, motivating, enabling andcoaching rather than simply presenting facts andfigures didactically. Implementing aninnovative teaching approach is onlysuccessful when the specific infrastructure andstudent situation are considered. Thus, amodified teaching strategy must be carefullydeveloped.In a traditional class there is a perception thatthe most industrious students are those whopassively soak up everything the teacher mightserve up to them in a suitably didactic sauceonly to spout it back word-for-word. It wasimportant, therefore, at the beginning of thecourse, in the introductory lecture, to stress thatparticipants do not need to repeat things learnedword-for-word. Rather it expressed the visionthat students evolve into investigators,starting an independent inquiry into a topic ofinterest in a self-directed manner. Consequently,facilitating, motivating, enabling and coachingare the key skill-set of the instructor (facilitator)rather than just didactic lectures. At thebeginning of the class, it is illustrated ABL with

a famous saying of Confucius that stressesparticipation as the key to students learningsuccess.There are numerous individual learning theoriesattempting to find answers to the problems ofhelping students learn and adapt to newsituations; two stand out: behaviorist theory andcognitive theory. Behaviorist theory states thatknowledge exists independently and outside of
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

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Activity based learning: An effective model for business schools

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people, i.e. only small bits of information aretransferred to learners, with learning successachieved only when a connection is establishedbetween a stimulus and a response. The secondtheory, cognitive theory, stresses the importancethat learning is a result of the interaction of aparticular structure and a persons own

psychological environment. In this theory,learning modifies the student's world ofknowledge by interaction processes, so that heor she acquires new insights or changes oldones.

Reshaping the Management Educationin Business SchoolsCorporate leaders have been placing demandsto the business school to redesign the programswhile they need management skills to face thechallenges described in the previous section ofthe research. This reshaping of managementeducation goes to the context. So, a criticalreview of management education has beengiven first. Then the evolution of managementeducation has been described to know thechanges happened with the contemporarychallenges. Finally, the restructured MBAprogram has been examined to evaluate theroles of business school. Business schools havecome under attack in recent years for the poor

job they do of providing relevant training andskills for their students. There is growing

corporate demand for pedagogical techniquesthat focus on their immediate problems ratherthan on lofty theories or even case studies.Business speakers at a recent internationalAssociation for Management Education(AACSB) symposium on continuous learningcontinued to make this plea as they challengedbusiness schools to be more proactive andpartner with business leaders in theircommunitiesand to make their curricula morerelevant.Teaching about uncertainty and increasing

environmental turbulence is not new theseconcepts have been discussed since the late1960s. Most teaching model and materials aregeared toward enhancing the ability of largeorganizations to adapt to change. Those that aremore person-centered treat change as necessaryevil and present topics such as resistance orcoping with change. Teachers and learners arefacing increased uncertainty, paradox, pervasive

rapid change, and dramatic challenges to thestatus quo and traditional mindset. In response,the individuals ability to adapt to change andembrace ambiguity should be more central inthe curriculum. Even the actors in businessschool mostly tried to accommodate the changeissue into their curriculum, there were

resistances everywhere. But three had beenpressure from different stakeholders to bringnecessary changes into the programs ofmanagement education.Change is driven by many other factors as well,including the increasing importance ofinternational rankings, public pressure onteaching performance and the more focusedagendas of governmental funding agencies.Primarily as a result of the changes in the waybusiness organizations function, colleges ofbusiness are subject to pressures form a number

of stakeholder groups, including employers,advisory boards, accrediting bodies, alumni,legislators, and students. As institutions ofhigher education are perceived to exist for thepublic good, they are increasingly heldaccountable for the quality of outputs produced.The business organizations those have beenincreasingly trying to cope with the changingdemands of the environment looking formanagerial expertise with required skills. So, anemphasis on skill development has transformedthe curriculum debate.

The discussion has moved away fromdetermining the appropriate balance of content,which is a discussion rooted in traditionalfunctional areas, to a determination of effectivemethods for developing softer skills, selfdirected learning, an a holistic understanding ofthe internal and external environment oforganizations. Traditional functional curricularapproaches often do not address these issues.Hence business curricula are gradually shiftingfrom functionally fragmented to convergent andcoherent, with a focus on developing specificcompetencies. The redesigned curricula mustcut across traditional boundaries to develop andreinforce the appropriate bundles of technicalknowledge as well as social and organizationalskills.In the 1950s, business schools in the UnitedStates were criticized for being overly narrowand vocational in their orientation. To remedythis, they were encouraged to, and did, hire

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faculty from a variety of acidic disciplinesrelevant to organizations and management so asto enhance their scholarly legitimacy. Now,however, the faculty who were hired to achieveacademic respectability for business schools arebeing criticized by the corporate community fortheir lack of experience in business firms, for the

perceived irrelevance of their research, and fortheir unwillingness to provide the kinds oftraining in practical professional skills thecorporate world feels in need.

Contextual Factors of the ABL ModelA doctoral-level statistics course presents achallenge for both students and instructors.Typically, there is a wide range of student skills,different levels of previous knowledge, andvarying interests. When a course is compulsory,a dislike of statistics or even a phobia of math

may add to the complexity. Given the specificenvironment in which we were teaching, we hadto anticipate cultural induced challenges in ourcourse design. Typically, students in China wereaccustomed to being taught in often-overcrowded classrooms in a more authoritarianteaching style, which meant student questioningand lively discussions were rare. As aconsequence, our participants typically learntand acquired knowledge and skills as the resultof observation, recall, memory, imitation andreplication. This is in contrast - even diametrical

- to education in North America and WesternEurope, which is traditionally based on ateaching style which fosters independentresearch, critical thinking, and participation anddiscussion in class.Thus, the biggest challenge for us was how tobridge the gap from previous cultural notionsand expectations of Chinese education with anew ABL approach in course participants'learning experiences. The facilitators previousexperience with domestic and non-domesticChinese students helped to cope with these

special factors. To gain a composite picture ofthe student situation and to fine-tune ourpedagogical strategy, we administered a surveyin the first session before the training started toassess teaching preference, knowledge ofstatistics and problem-solving skills. Studentsrated various statements on a 1 to 5-point Likertscale ranging from strongly agree to stronglydisagree. We evaluated the responses of 39

participants. The following provides a roughimpression of the questions covered.1. Overall knowledge in Questionnaire

Development Process and Survey Research: Byand large, the overall comprehension aboutsurveys was good. 74% of course participantsstrongly agreed, stating that prior experiences

prepared them to develop questions for asurvey. Similarly, it helped them understand thevariety of research methodologies. However,one out of four PhD students and junior facultydisagreed with the propositions that they gainedexperience in accurately performing businesscalculations (indeed this item received thelowest mean in this construct/area).

2. Knowledge and Higher Empirical Skills: Asexpected, empirical skills were not developed toany great extent. A little more than half theparticipants felt prepared by former courses in

applying statistical interference hypothesis testsand predictive analysis (e.g., regression). Nearlyone in two respondents stated that they did notgain skills in applying differences tests (e.g.,ANOVA) and advanced methods such as SEM(Structural Equation Modeling) or PLS (PartialLeast Square) Modeling. It seemed that,similarly to the U.S., participants focused onanalytical methods and case methods(Operations Research approach) and not onempirical research.3. Problem-solving Skills:A mixed picture was

gained in this area. While the majority of thestudents had no problems in searchinginformation in electronic databases, one personin three experienced difficulties when retrievinginformation from literature that is not availableelectronically. Participants felt very wellprepared in working efficiently in teams andtaking responsibilities for a process or specificresult (teamwork). The lowest mean value wasobserved in the use of creativity techniques inteam meetings (i.e., brainstorming); every thirdparticipant identified insufficient skills in thatparticular area. The highest standard deviationwas observed for the item evaluating apublished paper, and this reflected thedifferent student levels in the course.

4. Linguistic Skills:Proficient linguistic skills inEnglish were expected although students hadwidely varying English oral and writing skills.48% of the students agreed that prior coursesfostered oral presentation skills while 45%

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disagreed - nearly none of the studentsremained neutral on this issue. Three out of tenstudents identified a lack in their business-writing skills. There are many reasons for this.As in many Chinese universities, students havecompulsory English classes and are exposed toEnglish 'Power point' slides in bilingual

courses (which, however, are usually taught inMandarin) but this resulted in variable levels ofEnglish proficiency. Some students had returnedfrom visiting positions in the U.S. or Germany.5. Preferences in Teaching Style: In businesseducation, five different generic teaching stylescan be distinguished - problem-based learningin SCM with undergraduate students. Thehighest preference was given to a teaching stylethat outlined a problem, before applyingpossible methods and finally a solutionapproach. By contrast, the pedagogical strategy -

that starts by explaining methods andexemplifying them in the next steps - was giventhe lowest preference. A middle position went toa teaching style that starts by outlining aresearch issue and giving students anopportunity to investigate it for several weeksunder guidance.6. Degree of Satisfaction with Previous

Instructor's Way of Interaction:Students in thesample indicated that they are most satisfiedwith previous instructors who speak slowly anduse simple language. More than 60% explicitly

wished to be involved in class discussions. Asexpected learners considered that textbookteaching was the least preferable option that wasconfirmed by three out of ten students.The self-assessment showed that participantsprepared or reviewed their work for an averageof four and half hours per week. They alsothought that their classmates spent three hourspreparing for each double session (e.g., conductanalysis, review examples). However, this maybe partly due to the fact that completing ABL-based model is more time-consuming than atraditional technique-based course since ABLforces participants to spend time on the rightquestions, and not just to listen to answers.

Activity-Based Learning asPedagogical NatureIn the pedagogical concept of activity-basedlearning where the students is provided with anumber of learning scenarios rather than e-book

versions of paper-based manuals. As mentionedthe real drive to engage in such approachescame from the interactions that the academicstaff engaged with high-profile researchers andpractitioners, in the field of ManagementEducational Technology. The educationalphilosophies that influenced the pedagogical

approaches mainly came from the activity-theoretical method of conceiving the learningprocess together with Schneider's definition ofproject/activity-based learning. It is argued thatnew pedagogies alone including project-basedand collaborative learning do not guaranteeautomatic results.The role of the teacher was therefore still verycrucial for meaningful and successful learning tooccur. However, the teacher was not the same"know-it-all" version that we are accustomed tobut mainly with a redefined role mainly that of a

facilitator, orchestrator and manager of thepedagogical scenarios that he elaborates for thestudents. As orchestrator, the teacher can beseen as the one who is the author of thepedagogical scenarios and learning content. Asfacilitator, he is the one who is the pivotal pointfor learner support as he needs to be there toclarify concepts, resolve students' perceiveddeadlocks, and helping in the fuzzy parts of thelearning activity.The first problem which is of pedagogicalnature, that can arise in such situations are the

possibilities of over-structuring of the scenariosthat result in the same 'spoon feeding' techniquethat is so much criticized by proponents ofsocio-constructivism. It is this lack of too muchstructure in the learning activity steps thatcreates the fuzzy element to foster originalthinking as well as unique and differentsolutions from the learners. The idea is to havesemi-structured learning activities or scenariosto prevent learners to propose stereotyped workthat look similar to each other.Learners should have the freedom to proposetheir own solutions but in a negotiated way withthe teacher. Daniel Schneider also concurs withthis by highlighting the need for equilibriumbetween liberty and guidance (figure 1).

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Fig. 1: Need for equilibrium between liberty andguidance

The second issue is more complex, given thatthe teacher no longer performs one single role,but panoply of roles from orchestrator andfacilitator to the management of the learningprocess. From experience, this can be a reallydifficult situation for the teacher who is moreand more solicited by the students and at anytime. The time that a lecturer has to devote withrespect to project/activity-based learning alsoincreases drastically with respect to the numberof students and/or the number of learningactivities to be monitored. It also depends on thenumber of courses being taught by oneacademic. While the first implementations ofactivity-based learning were within thePedagogies, the number of students was lessthan twenty and it was perfectly manageable forthe academic. However, as the number ofstudents started to grow and the workload of

academics involved in activity-basedpedagogies increased to a great extent.At some point, taking into account theconstraints, the exigencies of service and otherprofessional commitments, tend to realize thathaving recourse to such efficient, innovative andcompetencies-based pedagogies are notaffordable and sustainable by institutions indeveloping countries with limited resources.This leads us to the third important issue relatedto the implementation of activity-basedpedagogies. While teachers need to have the

right mindset to be able to keep up with theirnew roles, students need to also understandtheir new responsibilities and tasks. In an e-learning environment focused on thedevelopment of skills and competencies,students are no longer mere recipients for 'pre-cooked' knowledge. Students need to beequipped with the relevant techniques ofmethods of inquiries, information search,

retrieval and classification as well as applicationin context-dependent scenarios. Therefore,students need to show a more entrepreneurshipculture and independence in the learningprocess. An entrepreneurship culture wouldtherefore mean more autonomy, development ofself-management and self-regulation abilities in

terms of commitment, time management andwork rate.

ABL As a Successful Model inBusiness SchoolsThe field of business requires multifacetedpractices for real-world problems as much as ormore than any other field. A business schoolexpects that application skills and knowledgeavailable to management graduates will becomparable to the skills and knowledgepossessed by business professionals. Creatinglearning situations where knowledge can beacquired, organized, and applied, then, is a vitalconsideration for business educators. Activity-based learning facilitates learning transfer andreal-world applicability, which is the mainconcern in the teaching philosophy of businesseducation. Recent developments in advancedtechnology have received keen attention in thefield of business education. The integration oftechnology-supported instruction and activity-based learning provides students with anenvironment to interact with a case in

diversified ways and settingsActivity-based learning describes a range ofpedagogical models to Business andManagement teaching. Its core premises includethe requirement that learning should be basedon doing some hands-on experiments andactivities. The idea of activity-based learning isrooted in the common notion that ManagementStudents are active learners rather than passiverecipients of information. If a student isprovided the opportunity to explore by theirown and provided an optimum learning

environment then the learning becomes joyfuland long-lasting.Activity-based learning model is a cognitive-learning model which is considered aconstructivist learning theory. Essentially, alearner constructs his own microcosms ofknowledge from past knowledge and/or currentexperiences and interacting with data. He or sheactively seeks new information, and is actively
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engaged in the process in the ways (he) gains,assimilates, and utilizes knowledge. Thefacilitator engages learners in outlining real-world problems in the first place instead ofstarting with a classification of problem-solvingmethods. Integrating ABL elements is thus apromising way to enhance students learning

experiences.Applications can be found in Management,Science and Engineering and more recently, alsoin operations management. Recently, theHarvard Business School even created acommittee on activity-based learning aimed atintegrating students extracurricular activitieswith their academic experiences in theclassroom. There is little relevant scientificliterature about statistics courses in operationsmanagement (OM) addressing specific needs ofPhD students in transitional economies.

However, it can build on the experiences madeby Burton reporting on typical problems ofstatistics classes at the PhD-level. For example,instructors cannot take for granted that studentshave advanced skills in data collection,particularly in developing surveys, or welldeveloped skills in formulating a specifichypothesis.Empirical Research in OperationsManagement - a course established by Charles

J. Corbett (Decisions, Operations andTechnology Management), Anderson School of

Management at the UCLA (University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles) - has similar objectives.However, given that specific learningenvironment, Corbett spent about half thecourse time critiquing empirical papers in OM,emphasizing the logical correctness of the studyand the underlying empirical research methods,and the preparation of an empirical term paper.With efforts to reform university teaching inChina, Chinese scholars support the notion thatthe traditional way of learning is not sufficientsince companies have changed in terms of whatthey require from students. Instead,participation and giving students the time toexplore issues is vital to long term success inChina. Therefore, Chinese universities want topromote dualism and offer active learningexperiences.ABL is not a completely new teaching stylebecause it can be traced back at least as far asSocrates and Humboldt. For a long time, it

seemed that universities neglected to thinkabout the process of learning, since it is a highlyactive process in which it is imperative toconvince students to speak, read, write, andthink deeply. The thinking required whileattending class low level comprehension thatgoes from the ear to the writing hand and leaves

the mind untouched. In contrast, the success ofABL model is to make management studentsfeel responsible for their learning and to supporttheir own individual development. For severalyears ABL has been implemented in teaching-learning curricula in a variety of settings frombusiness schools to universities.

CONCLUSIONActivity Based Learning is an approach that hasnow come of age. ABL is not a technique; it isabout Business Management. ABL needs to be

understood and implemented by all functions soits power can be unleashed and the benefitsobtained. Over time, ABL has evolvedconsiderably and is now being applied inmanufacturing, service companies, utilities,logistics, telecommunications, governmentbodies and many more sectors. With ABL;businesses can make dramatic improvements inmeasuring product and process costs, and moreimportantly customer profitability. This studyfocuses on Activity-based learning as asuccessful model used in the learning of

Business Management, Mathematics, andtechnology. An investigation into how languagelearning and Activity-based learning compareand contrast will be useful in determining ifthere are aspects or processes that can betransferred for the benefit of teaching andlearning Business Management.This study will focus on Activity-based learningbecause it is hailed as one of the best ways oflearning and teaching, especially in BusinessManagement. Activity - based learning isassumed to be built on the rationale that

management students learn best when they door are involved in action. Learning is thenstructured into activities that will facilitatewhat has to be learned. This specific approach isclosely related to "discovery based learning andinquiry based learning, all of which are linkedto methodology in Outcomes based education.

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