1501 Pedro Arriagada S. Ph.D. Professor Business

Transcripción

Proceedings del XXVI Encuentro Nacional de Facultades de Administración y Economía
ENEFA Proceedings - Vol. 3, Año 2010
ASFAE
7.08. Experiential Learning, Its importance in Business Education
Pedro Arriagada S. Ph.D.
Professor Business Economics
Universidad del Desarrollo
Case Study
October 2010
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Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to show Universidad del Desarrollo Business School
experience with the so called Co Oop project through which the students interact with firms in
their formal learning process. It is also an attempt to prove the hypothesis that experiential
learning is as important as cognitive or theoretical learning in business schools education.
After five years of experience and cohorts of aprox. 250 students in the Co Oop model,
UDD´s model show that students that went through the program do much better in formal and
theoretical courses than students that did not do the program. At the same time, the experience
show that the model requires different kind of teachers and a whole different way to administer
and supervise the learning process.
This paper is factual oriented; therefore its predicted potential is limited. Its originality is very
high given that at professional educational level is the only experience in the country. Also, it
introduces the innovation of week to week interactions with firms, rather than a sequential
process whereby the students spend one semester in school and then one semester working,
which is the experience of business schools in the United States.
Business education, Co Oop model, experiential learning, entrepreneurship, .
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Sumario
El principal objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar la experiencia de la escuela de negocios de
la Universidad del Desarrollo con su modelo de Co Educación, a través del cual los alumnos
interactúan con empresas como parte integrante de su malla curricular. Asimismo, pretende
reforzar la hipótesis que el aprendizaje práctico es al menos igual de importante que el
aprendizaje teórico en la formación de alumnos de negocios.
Después de cinco años de experiencia, con grupos de aproximadamente 250 alumnos, la
experiencia muestra que los alumnos que pasan por este proceso rinden mejor que los que no lo
hacen en sus cursos teóricos. También, muestra que este modelo de enseñanza requiere de
tutores, además de profesores y que su supervisión administrativa es mucho más compleja.
Este trabajo es factual, por lo que su capacidad de predicción es limitada. Es muy original pues la
experiencia de la UDD es única en lo que respecta a la formación profesional en Chile. También
introduce la innovación de hacer trabajar a los alumnos un día a la semana durante su semestre
académico, distinto a lo que hacen escuelas de negocios en Estados Unidos que secuencialmente
hacen que el alumno estudie un semestre y luego trabaje otro semestre.
Educación de Negocios, Modelo de Coeducación, Emprendimiento, Aprendizaje Práctico In situ
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1. Cognitive and emotional learning
Most of us learn through a rational mental process. We are subject to process information that
we get from different sources, like someone lecturing in front of us in a classroom, or reading a
textbook or other written material, or discussing a subject matter with other students and
professors. That is what we call cognitive learning.
Some students are better prepared than other students to absorb this process of learning. This
could be for several reasons: better ability to read, better ability to concentrate on abstract
material, better ability to be focus minded, better quantitative preparation, and so on.
On the contrary there are students that struggle through this process of cognitive learning. It is
not necessarily related to their IQ levels but to the fact that they find it harder to concentrate, they
have a more diverse state of mind, they act or rely more on visual memory or other related
matters.
Emotional learning refers to the process by which we learn with our heart. In most cases this
learning comes from our own personal experiences or with situations that have affected us
personally. For example, how does a child learn how to ride a bicycle?. The father may have
given him some personal instructions that the kid processed cognitively in his mind. But those
instructions did not mean much until he experienced them personally when sitting on the bike.
The matter of balance, speed, turning, breaking and so on will become clear to him only through
his personal experience.
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All of us are subject to both learning experiences. As above mentioned, some of us are
very good for cognitive learning while others are very good on experiential or emotional learning.
Of course, we can not go with only one way of learning, but in most cases who is weak on
cognitive learning is strong in experiential learning and vice versa.
In business education as well as in most scientific oriented subject matters, educators had
emphasized cognitive education far beyond experiential learning. This is also the case for most of
the learning process we are subject in basic, middle and high school education. More than
understanding why has it been that way, the question is why have we neglected the importance of
experiential learning.
First of all we can state that experiential learning is hard to formalize and treat in a
massive way. Is a more person to person experience because everyone will react in a different
way to the same experience. On the contrary, cognitive learning is easy to structure, formalize
and transfer to a class of students.
We could also say that there is a body of knowledge that is easier to transfer in a cognitive
way, like mathematics.
Others will state that experiential learning is no subject to generalizations and therefore
will always stay as a personal experience.
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The basic and foremost hypothesis stated here is that cognitive learning is a necessary but
not sufficient way to succeed in the learning process in business education and that experiential
learning has been neglected to a big extend. More than that, the hypothesis here is that
experiential learning will strongly enhance and improve cognitive learning in every subject
matter, more so in social sciences, and particularly in undergraduate business education. They
can act together in a very productive way if done correctly.
A good example of the above statement is the case of medicine schools. From the very
early stages of learning the student is faced with solid and complex matters like anatomy,
biology, physics and other scientific areas where they encounter several ways of cognitive
learning. But at the same time, also from the very early stages they start their experiential
learning by visiting hospitals and clinics, interacting with the working world of medicine. In such
a way they experience by themselves the nature and core of the profession. They smell hospital
smells, they see the faces of patients, and they feel the emotions and fears of people. In their case
this part of the learning process is as important if not more than the conceptual learning of
anatomy, biology and physics. That is why they spend half of the day in the classroom and half of
the day on the field.
In business education the balance has been 90% cognitive learning and luckily 10%
experiential learning, and this last part done in a very imperfect way. Some schools will state that
their student do summer jobs or working internships. It may even be a requirement for
graduation, but the students will say that if done, they were a very minor part of their learning
equation. Most of their learning process took place inside a classroom and in the library, reading
books, cases and other material.
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The question is open: why have we almost completely neglected experiential learning in
business education?
2. Business Education in Chile
Business education in Chile is rather a new phenomenon. It is not until the late 50´s that both
traditional universities, Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile started formally the
education of managers in what is now known in School of Business and Economics.
Shortly before a private effort lead by Mr. Pedro Ibañez following the will of his father Adolfo
Ibañez, started a School of Business that lead to the Escuela de Negocios de Valparaíso of
Fundación Adolfo Ibañez, now known as Universidad Adolfo Ibañez.
Before that time, managers came either from Law Schools, Engineering Schools or Schools of
Commerce.
As can be seen the initiative came from a business person wanting to train his own
managers and from young faculty members that were exposed to business and economics
education in The Chicago University.
The structure of business education was set on a pyramid way with the basic knowledge
of accounting, economics, management and quantitative skills on its base. From there the
instruction of functional aspects like finance, marketing, human resources, operations and son
were set. At the top more generic subjects like strategy and business policies.
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The example and the model was thereafter followed by many others and there is hardly
any public or private university in Chile today that is not imparting a Business Education degree
known in Chile as “Ingeniero Comercial”.
We can summarize this educational model in the following way:

Rigorous and conceptual oriented with its basic roots in economics based on class work
participation and with a traditional lecturing teaching format.

Based on the learning of conceptual basics in economics, accounting, calculus and from there the
functional areas of business, i.e. marketing, finance, human resources and operations. Later, the
introduction of strategy and more sophisticated applications of the functional business tools.
This model has evolved through out the years, with not many significant changes. The most
important ones being:

The introduction of the case method as a teaching methodology following the Harvard Business
School model.

The introduction of soft skills aspects such as leadership, coaching, negotiations, and others with
some changes in the teaching methods using field work as a complement of traditional class work.

The introduction of general knowledge oriented subjects in the curricula with the purpose to give
students a wider education.
This model of Business Education has had advantages and disadvantages. Among the first ones
we can state:
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
a solid conceptual education for students

a five year intensive program
Among the main disadvantages we can state:

The introduction of sophisticated conceptual material far beyond the capabilities of students.

The introduction of concepts and material far beyond the needs of the labour market for recent
graduates in business.

The lack of working skills
It could be stated that most programs require for graduation a number of hours of work
internships mostly done as summer jobs. This has been a very imperfect way to include
experiential learning in the process. This internships are done without any academic supervision
and on the company side also with very little structure and sophistication.
3. The competition
Partly, because of the weaknesses listed above and more than anything the distance
between the needs of the labour market and the characteristics of the “Ingeniero Comercial”,
other professionals became competition when hiring came about.
Inside Engineering schools an industrial engineer was developed, which somehow attracted the
same applicants of business schools. They could also develop the skills to perform functional
areas like operations and finance and has solid conceptual background in basic sciences. Also
they had a better feeling of factory grounds and therefore were better suited to work on
manufacture.
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On the other hand, Phsycology schools moved from clinic work to organizations and
equipped their graduates to perform in human resources departments. Having said that,
“Ingenieros Comerciales” remained preferred for sales and commercial departments performing
marketing functions.
It must be said that all the above were trained with the same biased towards cognitive
learning with very little participation of experiential or emotional learning. Above all that, the
emerging of MBA programs permitted that many more professionals coming from different
initial degrees started competing with the “Ingenieros Comerciales”, with the advantage of more
experience and working background.
The matter of the fact is that Business Schools at undergraduate levels followed the roots of
the traditional programs and turned the “Ingeniero Comercial” degree in somehow a commodity
with most programs looking very similar. The main distinction came from the brand value and
the quality of faculty. All the programs were class room based, cognitive oriented, lecture
delivered.
4. Firm´s perceptions
“Ingenieros Comerciales” had made quite an important contribution to the Chilean business
sector both public and private. The modernization of the Chilean economy could not have been
possible without the help of managers that transformed firms of all sizes and made them
competitive.
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The sophistication of the business world required sophisticated marketing, finance and
operations as well as an efficient management of human resources. There is no doubt that Chilean
business schoolshave been a key factor to support the change.
At the same time, gradually the working place required more than good and efficient
technicians that could work well with business tools. The market place started demanding people
that could effectively work within teams, people who could be good entrepreneurs within the
organization, people that could cooperate and think in more than one dimension.
One of the complaints that firm´s had about recent undergraduates from business schools
was that although they were well equipped with knowledge and concepts, they were very poor
understanding the working place. They had very little if any working experience at all and that
they were trained far beyond the capacities that they needed at entry levels. The consequence was
that recent graduates got frustrated very easily when in the working place, jobs changes too often,
and they were too theoretical.
On the other hand in most cases summer jobs provided by companies to business students
were not achieving at all the purpose of experiential learning as an integral part of the curricula.
Students worked for a month during the summer without any form of academic supervision and
sometimes companies did not know very well what to do with the students. Summer jobs became
favours to friends and family who needed a job for sons and daughters who needed this as a
requirement for graduation.
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5. The UDD experience
UDD started in 2005 the first experiment of experiential learning in business in Chile, breaking
through a long tradition as exposed before. In order to do that several pieces had to be put
together. The most important being:
a revision of the “Ingeniero Comercial” curricula with the purpose of preparing the student to
enter the working world from the very beginning of their education. This revision meant an
exercise to simplify the curricula in order to leave the basics and build upon them the functional
areas and finally the vertical management skills.
The inclusion of faculty to the changes so that experiential learning could be completely
merged with the cognitive learning students gets in the classroom. This becomes increasingly
important throughout the students life cycle in School.
The inclusion of firms that could participate in the first stages of the program and that would be
willing to accept first year students and go through a trial and error process together with the
School. They were to be our “field clinics” in comparison with medical schools.
The full commitment with the project from faculty and administration plus the achievement of
the three elements mentioned got UDD started with the cohort of 130 students that began the
program in 2005.
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The first step was to implement during the first two years of study, or what is called the
bachelors state, three experiential based courses. The first on entrepreneurship, the second being
the basic introductory course of management and the third the second course of management. The
purpose being to transform the typical courses on management taught in every business school,
from cognitive learning to experiential learning.
The students got divided in groups of five students each with specific firm assigned to
each team. Each firm assigned a mentor that help students to achieve what was needed either
finding information or talking to people inside the firm to find proper answers to their questions.
Each team reported weekly to the academic mentor according to a pre fixed schedule
through 20 to 30 minutes sessions. During those sessions students got evaluated according to
content and other issues like quality of presentation, use of professional language, quality of back
up material or preps, team work and so on. Also they were evaluated by a one page minute that
they had to write summarizing the discussion where grammar, synthesis abilities and use of
written language was taken in consideration.
By the end of this first two years of study, there was expected that besides the knowledge
of the basic language of business learned mostly on traditional courses of math., economic
principles and accounting, students had gained working tools and a hand understanding of how
firm´s work. Also learn the concrete application of language in real business issues and more than
anything they would have the chance to interact with their future working environment
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understanding the people issues and dilemmas. At the same time, they would clearly understand
some business working codes such as punctuality, flexibility, respect to others and so on.
By the beginning of their third year at school, the student takes a temporary job of 10
hours a week in one of the companies associated to the program. The company is assigned by the
School and together with each company the job responsibilities are determined.
If in the previous stage the field work done by students was a complement to their work
done in School and very much guided by an academic tutor, now in this stage the student
becomes formally employed earning a nominal salary and responds to a person inside the
company as any other employee. The 10 working hours of the week become the core and pivotal
of his or her education.
During this stage an academic tutor leads each student throughout the whole academic
year. He gives the students his personal guidance and serves as the link between the students
work and the functional courses they are taking. It might be that the student is involved in post
sales in a retail store and bring back to his marketing class issues involved with customers
satisfaction or bring to his operations class issues related to delivery. The academic tutor
maintains a close relationship with each student boss to keep track of his or her performance at
work.
Each student stays in the same company for one academic year. During their fourth year
of study he then goes to another company and works with another academic tutor. The idea is for
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the student to get two different working experiences and in companies of different business
sectors. If, for example, during the third academic year the work was at a retail company, during
the fourth year he might go to a commercial bank. He or she gets to see two different worlds,
with different cultures. At the same time he will perform different tasks, some in direct
relationship with customers, some related to back office operations, some focused on analysis of
data and also some related to physical on the floor tasks.
When UDD started with this new program in 2005, the incoming students started their
experiential learning in the way related. At the same time in order to learn the operations and
dilemmas of the second stage, third and fourth year students and several companies were chosen
for them to work ten hours a week. An academic tutor took care of the students in this pilot
project. Beginning 2007, when a number of the 2005 class started their third year of study,
another group of students started working ten hours a week in six different companies. In august
of 2007 another group of students of the 2005 class started working.
Until now, 30 students went through the pilot project for one academic semester and 50
students of the 2005 class completed the two years of experiential learning in companies, 80
students of the 2006 class and 100 students of the 2007 class, are going through their second and
first year of experiential learning in more than 30 companies. Five academic tutors have been
involved and more than 80 companies have so far participated.
Even though there has not been enough time to adequately evaluate the program, the evidence
is leading towards the following preliminary conclusions:
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
The second stage of the process, which is when the students are working ten hours a week, is
easier to administer than the first stage when first and second year students are doing different
things for firms as part of their three experiential courses. This is because of many reasons. The
companies do not see much of a benefit to have first and second year students dealing with them.
Students work in groups of five which gives an incentive for the easy riders, the follow up of the
students needs much more structure. On the contrary, when the student is working ten hours a
week, the company gets to see the benefits of having them involved and the one to one
relationship with the academic tutor is much more productive.
A one year time span for the second stage is much better than the one semester for the pilot
project. There is an accommodation time when the student start working. Its time varies but is
usually between three to six weeks (thirty to sixty hours). During that time the student gets to
know the working place, the boss, the nature of the responsibilities involved. The company
accept the student, understanding the purpose of the program and the academic tutor is able to
know each student on a personal basis and how to help him in the best way. Once this period of
time is gone, the student starts to be productive and more autonomous.
Whatever the job or task assigned to the student, the responsibility of the academic tutor is to
help him relate to the functional courses. As the marketing, human resources, finance and
operation courses are taught during the third year at School, during the first year of temporary
work the students become very active bringing their work experience into the classroom. They
want to share their experience and learn from classmates experiences. The program has permitted
simulate a graduate course environment into undergraduate education.
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The working experience enables the students relate emotionally to the subject matters seen in
class work. That is, topics such as organizational conflicts, culture, incentives, visual marketing
become very real to them, because they have seen them at work. The concepts and tools to
analyze them become real and tangible to students. They move from conceptualization to
understanding. This is achieved much better at undergraduate level through this program than
through the case analysis method, which remains to the student as an external and abstract matter.
The experience the students get in the working place help them mature and understand the
real world. Getting to work on time, knowing new people and other places around the city,
dealing with customers and fellow workers, help them to overcome their insecurities, and to
know themselves, open their minds. For most of them these aspects of the learning process are
what is the most valuable of the whole experience.
The value of changing the students to another company during their fourth year of study to
give them a different working experience remains open. By the end of 2008, almost 80 students
will have completed one year of work and will be ready to change to another company. It might
be possible that some of the companies may like their students to stay for another year. This will
be a sign of student recognition but will prevent the student from having another working
experience.
Faculty is recognizing the value of experiential learning in undergraduate business studies.
We have compared the learning experience in the same Human Resource course of a cohort of
students that participate in the program and that are therefore working the 10 hours a week with
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another cohort of students that are not in the program. The difference in performance is
significant in favour of the first, not only in the quality of discussions in the classroom but also in
the mid term and final exams grades.
The credentials of the academic tutor are essential. They do not correspond to the typical
tenior faculty member, but they have to be recognized in the business world in such a way that
the tutor will not only be in the position of personally advising students under his mentoring but
will also open doors to the students in the business world.
An important outcome of the program is that companies that had good experiences with
students may offer them a permanent job after finishing their fourth year of study. The pilot
project performed with 30 students, which worked 10 hours a week for one semester, during
2005 and 2006, gave as a result a permanent employment offer to half of the students. Most of
the 2005 class students did finish their two years of experiential learning and are taking their last
elective courses before graduation. Almost half of them are formally employed in jobs with
flexible hours. Some of them in the same firms where they did their experiential learning.
6. Open questions
As this project is yet work in progress there are still many unresolved issues that remain to
be answered. Here are what we believe are the most important ones and on which we have to
monitor closely.
Transfer of content: as this project meant a redefinition of curricula in order to open space
to the experiential process of learning including the 10 weekly hours of temporary work, some
sacrifices had to be made in terms of content included in the span of courses. The idea was to
leave during the first two years the contents of basic business language and during the last two
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years the contents of functional areas plus some vertical and cross functional contents such as
strategy. As said before, the assumption being that students at this stage are not prepared nor
mentally mature to absorb sophisticated conceptual material. Also, that the experiential part of
the program was more than a compensation for the sacrifices in content.
Companies commitment: an essential part of the success of the program is to assure and
motivate companies commitment. As said, during the first two years of study students use
companies to get information and need some companies executive time to explore and understand
the information required. At this point companies have very little to gain. During the third and
fourth year of study when students become temporary workers then companies start benefiting
from the program. In the beginning we had to overcome a company resistance because of bad
experiences with students doing summer jobs. Fortunately the response so far has been very
satisfactory with the number of companies involved in the program increasing and the number of
students per company also growing.
Students commitments: the experience is very different for different students. For some of
them has become an extraordinary learning experience. They has not only grown in knowledge
but more than anything in maturity and personality. They have learned how to overcome
frustrations, how to deal with job formalities, how to respond to a boss, how to interact with
working mates.
For others has been interesting but not that important. They wanted to
perform tasks of managers while they got more administrative assignments, they were not
prepared to overcome the frustrations that come on the daily work. For a few, it was a bad
experience. A few examples of students were nor at all prepared to assume the responsabilities of
the job, were a few actually fired from their jobs.
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1501 Pedro Arriagada S. Ph.D. Professor Business

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