Fall 2010 MAR3023 Student MAmetrics Satisfaction Survey
Sample of Positive Feedback (67%: 143 out of 215 open-ended remarks)
Prompt: “How would you describe the MAmetrics’ tutorial and certification exercise to other students in
your own words…” Each quote is a student’s unedited response.
“A great learning experience where tutorials were very helpful to understand the material.”
“Cool”
“Fun to learn and will be useful.”
“I thought it was definitely an interesting learning experience. The thing that I found most interesting was
that it can be used in real life situation, quite often actually. I can definitely see the value of integrating
these principles into the business environment. I was actually surprised at how much information was given
to me during the exam. After being told to put a lot study time, I found many answers practically in front of
my face. Overall, I'm glad I have this learning experience.”
“Very well designed, helped me greatly.”
“Excellent tool to learn accounting/marketing.”
“You work with excel worksheets and it’s a much more hands on and mathematical approach to
marketing.”
“I really liked. I felt confident with the Mametrics spreadsheets. I thought I knew the Mametrics very well
but I did not get a good grade (84).”
“Very easy to navigate! Seems overwhelming at first, but once the professor goes over the website, it
makes it easy to navigate and understand.”
“The tutorial was very beneficial for learning the materials. The exercises were great and I like the real life
examples.”
“It is a useful tool, that every business student should learn how to use it. I am planning on using the
materials with my family company.”
“The tutorial and certification exercise are good ways of cemmenting common sense concepts. As an
accounting major I will use the spreadsheets daily in my career; these exercises were good introduction and
practice.”
“It is totally worth your time. It is very helpful, because you learn and get a certificate. The test is fair and
straightforward.”
“Very useful and educational.”
“The tutorial was extremely useful in preparing yourself for the exam. The certification exercise gives you
great confidence and knowledge about the different topics presented. It is a great achievement once you
pass and I will recommend every student in the field to do the exam.”
“An excellent learning experience, which I hope will be helpful in the future. I learned about subjects I
didn't know, for example, marketing value analysis and relationships analysis.”
“It was a little tough but I learned a great deal, it was a challenge that had me nervous at first but I feel very
happy that I did well on the Mametrics exam. If I had to give advice, I would say study hard and you will
do well.”
“A very good way to learn the relationship between business accounting and marketing.”
“Interesting & useful once a person gets a good understanding. Definitely a plus for any business majors.
Thank you.”
“Educational, gives you spreadsheets that you can really learn from. Not hard. Easy to read & understand.”
“It’s a good practice for real world scenarios. Helps you think. I saved the spreadsheets because I'm sure I'll
use them in the future.”
“At first glance the material seems very confusing and different to everything you have seen before.
However, after you go through it and give it a fair shot, you realize its actually comprehendible.”
“Learned a lot. Not that difficult.”
“I would say its useful & I highly recommend it.”
“It’s a great experience because through this tutorial you can learn in a easy way about the Mametrics exam
and material. I would recommend it to all students.”
“It was an extremely detailed and helpful tool that helped me familiarize with excel.”
“It's a tutorial that looks extremely complicated when you first start working on it, but once you understand
what the procedure is, knowing how to solve the exercises becomes doable. I started by reading the text,
but I stopped when I felt I was either not understanding the point the text was trying to make, or I was not
grasping enough information to know how to work on the spreadsheets. So I jumped to work on the
spreadsheets directly. I went over a few of the examples embedded on the spreadsheets and there I started
working on the sample text. Once I felt I had a good understanding of how to solve the problems, I just
worked on the sample exam referring back to the spreadsheets to find similar problems in there that would
help me solve the questions. So I think you should read the text only if you have the time to do it and if you
want to learn what they say. However, in order to pass the certification exam you need to focus on the
spreadsheets!”
Sample of Neutral Feedback (26%: 55 out of 215 open-ended remarks)
“Easy just review the material given to you.”
“Overall, it was easy, all you need to do is study the study questions and sample question. Also do the
spreadsheets.”
“It is a complicated exam but as long as you have common sense and have practiced the practice exam you
will do good. If you have no common sense you should study everything in detail.”
“Practice the spreadsheets & texts and you'll do fine!:)”
“Its easier than expected if you study. If you don't you will have no idea of what you are doing and you'll
fail”
“Long and precise. Study hard!!”
“The exercises are easy if you study the spreadsheets, practice, and understand the exercises in the tutorials
and the practice exam. In order to do good in the exam, it is important to familiarize yourself with the
spreadsheets and know where things are. The tutorials were very useful and they explained how to do the
exercises step by step.”
“I think it was much easier than I expected. If you study, you should ace the exam.”
“Its not to hard if you study and know how to work the problems.”
“It was not very difficult.”
“Don't wait till the last minute easy if you study”
“The test was challenging, however as long as you understand the material and practice with the
spreadsheets you will do fine.”
“The tutorial was very easy & concise. As long as you practice & understand the problem, you will not
have any problem and you will get your certificate.”
“If you study + practice the practice exam, the actual exam is very easy.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“Structure thinking. Tedious. Attention to detail is important. The spreadsheets tutorials help.”
Sample of Negative Feedback (8%: 17 out of 215 open-ended remarks)
“Confusing”
“A joke”
“Nonsense, the spreadsheets were very disorganized because they included sample questions and scenarios.
It would have been useful if there were two sets of sheets, one with examples and the other for test taking.”
“Easy but waste of time.”
“I understand that at the college level we need to learn on our own but this exam was not simple. The first
25 questions were easy due to the answers already on the printed out document. I didn't have the time
which is my fault for not prioritizing but the spreadsheets were difficult. Printing out the documents was a
waste of paper. The spreadsheets 4-8 were not easy and when checking the answers it did not explain well.
The sample exam had many questions that threw me off. And I looked for the answer it did not explain how
to properly do the problem. This angered me that it did not show me the correct way to get the answer. :( It
bit the big one!!!”
“A waste of time, just a way to make marketing harder, very unnecessary.”
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Fall 2009 MAR3023 Student MAmetrics Satisfaction Survey
Sample of Positive Feedback (65%: 161 out of 249 open ended remarks)
Prompt: “How would you describe the MAmetrics’ tutorial and certification exercise to other students in
your own words…” Each quote is a student’s unedited response.
“This is a great tutorial. It is very useful for your everyday life and real situations that you will encounter as
part of your job.”
“Extremely helpful text and spreadsheet which are very easy to use and apply to real world business
application.”
“Really good tutorial that will be VERY useful on (sic) my daily marketing practices. I believe that
everyone MUST read and learn from it.”
“Very useful in business. Easy to study for with great guides.”
“The spread sheets are an excellent set of tools! They are easy to use and help you out to remember the
formulas. Very useful!”
“The tutorial is a great tool. It is easy to understand, it tells you what to do and when you plug the numbers
in you will see the effect on your calculation which actually reinforces what you've read.”
“The tutorial and certification exercise gives you a chance to see why all those business processes in
managerial accounting are used in the real world. It gives you the opportunity to become comfortable with
the formulas and gives you a deeper insight into what exactly is going on.”
“Excellent experience and very interesting.”
“It is simple and provides the student with tools that can be used in the real world. In addition to providing
a certification that sounds impressive on a resume.”
“Very clear, gives many examples so you could practice them and learn how to do them for the exam,
which was true to the content in the tutorials.”
“Very informative and educational, perfect information that is useful and is relevant to everyday marketing
tactics. Very helpful and an awesome tutorial, would recommend to other students.”
“It will help you along the way to any business class you’ll take. Worth the $s spent!”
“I believe that the material learned in the tutorial and certification was extremely useful and relevant to
what we will be seeing in the business world. It prepared me well and gave me hands on experience to real
world questions.”
“It is a way of life, it will rock your mind and you will be a much better person for doing so. Awesomeness
to the tenth degree. But don’t forget to study.”
“It's a helpful tool that gives you examples of what could occur in an everyday job. Overall, I believe the
exam was useful and worthy of every minute I spent studying for it.”
“It was an excellent learning experience for my future career. I just had to study for it and everything was
like in the practice exam.”
“Although it may take time to study, it turns out to be simple in instruction and explanation, very effective
tool to study, something otherwise difficult”
“Empowering - source of confidence/door opener”
“Excellent, useful, straight to the point, clear and precise.”
“Great self study material, very useful.”
“I think it’s extremely helpful for future business professionals.”
Sample of Neutral Feedback (26%: 53 out of 249 open-ended remarks)
“Make sure to study the practice test and tutorial example problems and you will do fine.”
“A lot of reading not very hard just got to understand the general idea and practice several times the
spreadsheets.”
“The tutorial is useful if you take time to read it and to do the exercises.”
“It was not easy, but with a couple hours at practice it is okay. Some if not most is common sense stuff”
“If you study the text a few times and work out the practice exam you will do just fine!!”
“It is very easy if you practice the tutorial, If you do that you will pass with a good score.”
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“This was an exam that requires studying but is fairly easy if you studied, reviewed and did the practice
assignments.”
Sample of Negative Feedback (14%: 35 out of 249 open-ended remarks)
“Waste of time. I don't think I learned much. I would have preferred to spend my time studying for my
classes.”
“The information seems overwhelming, especially for an online course.”
“Hard.”
“Great monopoly you have going on there. I don’t see why we have to pay for a part of my grade.”
“A scam to take your money and weist (sic) your time.”
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Transcript of feedback from the FIU Chapman School of Business
Professional MBA class of 2009. September 20, 2008.
The prompt was;
Please give us your opinion of the MAmetrics spreadsheets. Please talk about if you have used any at work
or talked to others at work about the spreadsheets. Some of you have already shared some stories. We also
want to hear what you liked about the content and what you did not like about the content.
Each quote is a student in their own words:
Brilliant! Already used to prepare for customer meetings and planning to use for channel strategy I am
setting up. Clear, consistent, motivating, fun and most importantly got a lot out of it.
MAmetrics spreadsheets are a great tool to have handy. It will allow anyone to use them and understand it
in a not very long time.
Honestly, I really liked the spreadsheets they were really clear and easy to follow. They make these
complicated subjects easy to follow. I have seen some of these concepts before and I have to say that I am
honestly, very impressed with how much easier it was for me to understand these concepts using the
spreadsheet tools. Finally I think that combining all of them together they really make a good management
tool. I like the teaching approach very much.
I think that these tools are invaluable; in the past I had to work these numbers with rudimentary formulas
and estimates. These spreadsheets carry all the information together and they help to explain to others the
operational value of money, project management and making money $$. If I would have had them in my
previous job I would not have had to work so hard at convincing Board Members. Currently I have
implemented the PVprospecting sheet to account and track the potential value or problems with our
investment – it has been GREAT!!! I think that it is fantastic; it keeps you focused and lets you see how it
works in real life situations allows you to use them in almost all arenas.
I believe they <the spreadsheets> are very useful and I’ll use them in my work.
I liked them, they are clear. Sometimes they had blank spaces and I didn’t notice there was still a place to
read below. They could be aesthetically nicer but they are fine.
I have not used them at work although during our study sessions it was noted that many of the group
members have used them and others intend to use them. It is definitely a GREAT tool. The teaching
approach works great, as it is very detailed and self explanatory once read. I liked the MAmetrics teaching
approach very much! Still think that I needed more exercise time.
Professor, as an engineer working in a business world this gave me a lot of tools to take decisions with a
solid base: “numbers” I’m using the S4 Product-line decision MAmetrics <spreadsheet> to take several
decisions in my company. I liked the teaching approach a lot. I wished to have been able to practice more,
but as I said before MAmetrics has become a tool for my decision-making process.
Makes it a little confusing for the answers to be cumulative but the spreadsheets are a useful tool to analyze
various business scenarios and be able to make informed decisions. I thought the MAmetrics spreadsheets
really helped me understand the different ways the bottom line can be affected. I think these spreadsheets
will be a great tool in the future in order to make effective management decisions that will positively affect
the bottom line and shareholder values. I enjoyed a majority of the material covered and I learned a great
deal.
At work I used the price setting spreadsheet but I had a hard time explaining how the formula worked. I
really enjoyed the marginal analysis spreadsheet because it helped me better do my everyday job!
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The spreadsheet<s> helped me understand how the company I work for analyzes their brands and the
business decisions made to remove or add new brands to the portfolio. I currently do not use the
spreadsheets, however would like to demonstrate MAmetrics to the Marketing budgeting team. I am
impressed how easily you can determine markup, price variances and effects of customer retention rates.
Professor Dickson’s approach to MAmetrics was very challenging. I have to thank him for the challenge.
I am really surprised that companies do not use the spreadsheets for marketing/Accounting analysis.
Hopefully I will see training and certification on IMA where I can continue to develop my knowledge. I
will follow up on the IMA website since I am currently a member.
I am very surprised how much was taught in this tutorial. I really never expected to see MAmetrics
spreadsheets in this course. Since I have noticed that many of the marketing classes they just go over the
basics of what marketing is or does. I have been able to use one of them in my work (S2 Setting Price).
Since I work in the Treasury Department I need to negotiate fees for every bank analyses transactions that
we have. Every single spreadsheet was well explained by steps.
The MAmetrics spreadsheets have been an excellent tutorial and has helped me prepare margin analysis
spreadsheets at the office where I currently work, the sales team comes up with their own margin on the
product without analyzing whether the new price can affect the volume that will be purchased.
I practiced at work the S4 (Product-line extension) in a new cell phone that a Chinese company is
approaching my company to introduce its models in Latin America.
MAmetrics is a great tool, and even though I have not used it at work, I’m expecting to use it at my
business, especially the marginal analysis and setting price. In general, I like the approach of the
MAmetrics spreadsheets, however, there were some that were harder to understand (S6).
I have discussed but have not utilized the spreadsheets in my work. I most certainly will in the future
however, once comfortable that I have mastered each segment. An overall excellent analytical tool.
The MAmetrics spreadsheets are very helpful in providing a structures approach to a very complex topic.
All content was interesting. Need more time to fully appreciate it. You need to organize and structure
spreadsheets better (Colors, Fonts, lines), phrasing, ordered lists etc. Fix grammatical and ambiguous
language errors. Despite the shortcomings above it was a good exercise and learning experience that will
be ever more effective when refined.
The MAmetrics have been very useful. Reduced many processes that are currently performed manually. I
haven’t shared with anybody yet because I need to understand them first.
Very helpful; need more practice to understand in detail at a faster pace. The teaching approach was very
interesting and challenging.
I use these analytical skills all the time, just not applied to Marketing and business. I think there was too
much verbage and maybe it was not as clear as it could be, even though there was a lot of explanation and
examples. Difficult…took a lot of time, several hours after work every day. Kicked my butt and my
girlfriend hates me now…
The spreadsheets are a very well combined set of tools. They have taught me how to apply the number
theories (Finance, Statistics) to the real world scenarios that a manager can face. They are an open eyer
tool, very friendly to use and easy to remember. I have been taught before about NPV, but never
remembered the formula. With the spreadsheet I will have it on my easy to remember formulas. The same
concept applies to the marginal analysis. I have applied them at work. Thank you for putting them as
simple as they are. One of the few systems that has really worked in my case. Excellent approach and the
test helped me to stick the different concepts in my mind. A very unique way to look at marketing. I’m
really impressed about the way I look at things now.
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I would have rather practiced more in class going over different exercises and to apply it using real life
examples. It was a fair bit of learning on your own.
I have not had the opportunity to use the spreadsheets in my work. I work at a broker dealer. What I
don’t like is that you have to go up and down to resolve the questions.
The MAmetrics spreadsheets are very important. I needed more training since my Excel expertise is
limited. It allows me to think about the various aspects of marketing and how finance plays a large role
with these spreadsheets.
Difficult to understand. Thought material could have been explained better.
It was very challenging but it was a great exercise to challenge your brain.
Very useful. The approach is very interactive and very useful.
The mametrics spreadsheets are a great tool to have and use. The content and detailed explanations are
very helpful. I will be referencing the spreadsheets as well as using them in my career. I enjoyed the
MAmetrics teaching approach. Thank you.
I have talked about MAmetrics at work and many of the people I have spoken to about its contents but I
have not used it at work. I liked everything about the content although sometimes it was tough to follow. I
enjoyed the mametrics approach. I feel that it sends a powerful message.
Would have liked more time to work with them in class. Will keep them handy.
It is definitely a unique, innovative and effective approach to marketing. These spreadsheets and the
information gained from them could richly influence executive marketing decisions. Now you have to find
a marketing executive smart enough to use them!
Excellent teaching approach. Very resourceful, easy to comprehend given my non-financial background.
I have forwarded the spreadsheets to my upper management for review.
I’ve discussed them with a friend who is a marketing manager for an auto dealership, his knowledge of
them was limited I think because he is “old school” he does not want to think this way. I think he is afraid
to rock the boat. I love the fact that I found out that there is more useful things in marketing than the
4”Ps”.
About 20% reported actually using a MAmetrics spreadsheet at work, about another 20%
a clear intention in the near future to use one at work. The major problem, apart from
some editing needed was lack of time to practice before the Certification examination
mentioned by about one in ten. There sometime colorful yet overwhelming enthusiasm
is pervasive and persuasive. In the class of 43, 4 scored 100% on the exam, 18 more
Passed with a High Distinction (above 98%), 8 more earned a High Pass (95%-98%), 12
earned a Pass (90%-94%) and one student failed to earn Certifications with an 86%.
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