Facilitating Integration of Knowledge in an Introduction to Business Freshman Course: A Project
Summary & Next Steps
Cynthia M. Newman, Department of Marketing
1.
Identify class level, specify whether core, elective, or major requirement, any other
pertinent information on class demographics.
The Introduction to Business course is an elective course targeted primarily to freshman business
majors. There are approximately 4 sections of the course offered in the fall semester, one of
which is an honors section, and 2 offered in the spring semester. Enrollment per section varies
between 25 and 39 students. The course resulted from a cross-department effort in the 20022003 academic year to address the CBA objective for all business students to understand the
integration among business subjects. Due to restrictions in the number of business courses that
can be a prescribed part of the business curriculum, it was decided to make this an elective
course; however, given that student schedules in the fall semester are made by the Dean’s office,
the goal was for as many business students as practical to be assigned CBA 110 as part of their
first semester of study. Academic advisors are encouraged to recommend CBA 110 as a second
semester elective course to any freshman who did not take the course in his/her first semester.
2.
What problems or questions about my students’ learning and my teaching strategies did I
address?
Goals for the Course
CBA 110 is an introductory survey course in business. Each of the topics covered in the course
are mini-introductions to entire fields of study within business. For example, there is a chapter
on accounting, one on finance, one on economics, two on marketing, and four on management.
As a result, many of the learning goals for the course are not content related. Specifically, the
learning goals for the course are:
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To gain a general understanding of the business world, including the role of individuals
within the firm as well as current issues such as competitiveness, ethics and globalization
To develop a foundational understanding of the functional areas of business (finance,
marketing and operations) as well as supporting areas (accounting, human resource
management, information technology)
To recognize and appreciate the inter-relationships among the functional and supporting
areas of business
To strengthen written and oral communication skills, teamwork skills and leadership
abilities
The third goal, which represents a higher order of critical thinking, will be the focus for this
investigation.
Approaches Used to Foster Learning with respect to Integration
While the instructor makes a concerted effort when teaching this course, in particular, to
emphasize during each class session how the topic(s) of the day relates to other functional areas
of business, formal assignments are also used to stress the integrated nature of business areas.
The primary assignment used for this purpose is a semester long project. The description of this
project is as follows:
Individual Term Project: Industry Portfolio
Each student will select an industry of personal interest, with the instructor’s approval,
and develop a portfolio of articles and commentary throughout the semester. The
portfolio will contain 4 recent Wall Street Journal articles (2004 – present) about the
industry. Of the 4 articles, at least one should address each of following the business
areas:
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management and human resources
marketing
accounting or finance.
The fourth article can address one or more of the above topics or can address another
business topic.
For each article the student should prepare a one paragraph discussion of the primary
business area discussed in the article (concept paragraph) – in other words, marketing,
management, human resources, accounting, finance or some other business area. This
paragraph should explain to the reader how the information in the article is related to or
illustrates various concepts and theories associated with the business area under which
the article has been classified in the portfolio.
In addition to this paragraph, for each article the student should prepare a one paragraph
discussion of how the topic(s) discussed in the article demonstrates the integrated nature
of business functions (integration paragraphs). To do this, the student may address one or
more of the following questions:
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How might other functional areas of the organization respond to the actions or
decisions discussed in the article?
How might other functional areas of the organization be affected by the actions or
decisions discussed in the article?
How might other functional areas of the organization have influenced the actions
or decisions discussed in the article?
Area of Concern
While some students complete this assignment with ease and satisfactorily demonstrate that they
have developed at least a basic understanding of the inter-related nature of the functional and
supporting areas of business, other students have difficulty. Their difficulty with the integration
paragraphs is not usually confined to just one article/business area. Rather, the difficulty is
present across all four articles; this suggests that their difficulty stems not from limited
understanding of a particular topic, but rather from a limited understanding of the integrated
nature of business. While more students in the honors section of the course than in non-honors
sections are able to complete the project at a relatively high level, there are a proportion of
students in all sections that have difficulty in demonstrating through this project that they
understand the integrated nature of business.
3.
Did I rethink my course goals? (Explain.)
Given the centrality of the learning goal under study, I did not re-think the course goals at this
time. Before re-thinking the goal, I wanted to see if adjustments to the project and additional
support could be given to students to increase their success in demonstrating significant progress
toward, if not mastery of, the course goal under consideration.
4.
What methods did I use to gain information? [Specify any CATs here, including changes
in assignments and assessments, if relevant.]
I decided to introduce a practice assignment into the course at week 10 that mirrored the term
assignment and also to develop a modified version of the categorizing grid (Angelo and Cross,
pp. 160-163). The practice exercise was divided into four parts in order to better assess the
impact of the categorizing grid (see Appendix A) on student performance of the assigned task
and also to allow students to see for themselves the thought process that is required to
successfully complete the assignment. First, the students were asked to read a short Wall Street
Journal article and write the two paragraphs required in the term project. Second, students were
introduced in class to the modified version of the categorizing and were asked to re-read the
article in order to populate the grid with examples of how the article references, either explicitly
or implicitly, different areas of business. Third, students shared their completed grids with one
another in small groups and were allowed to add or modify information on their grids based on
the discussion with other students. Fourth, students were asked to revise their original
paragraphs using the information from the categorizing grid. Specifically, one highly populated
column on the grid would be selected as the business area to be discussed in the concept
paragraph while the information in the remaining columns would be used to write the integration
paragraph.
5.
What examples or evidence of student performance can I offer to illustrate how I drew
conclusions? [Please collect samples to illustrate effects of your interventions. Emphasis may
be on qualitative or quantitative data. ]
Students were asked to revise their paragraphs for the practice assignment based on the
information in the modified categorizing grids using the track changes function of Word. This
allowed them to see the contribution of the grids to the assignment as well as allowed me a way
to evaluate the impact of the intervention by comparing the before and after paragraphs using a
Primary Trait Analysis. The same Primary Trait Analysis was used to evaluate the concept and
integration paragraphs from the final term project. In addition, students were asked to evaluate
the term project and the modified categorizing grid via an additional set of questions on the
course evaluation form.
Both the project and the grid were very well received by the students. (See Appendix B) In
addition, the grade distributions for the concept and integration paragraphs that were part of the
final project were encouraging. (See Appendix C) Surprisingly, the class as a whole preformed
better on the more challenging of the two paragraphs, the integration paragraphs. This may be a
result of the strong emphasis that was placed during the semester on the integration of
knowledge across business subjects. The Primary Trait Analysis of the final projects referenced
earlier (part 8) may give insight into where the students needed the most improvement in the
concept paragraphs.
6.
What theories or debates about learning frame or illuminate my inquiry?
[Please refer here to specific readings and theories or debates, e.g., expert/novice (How People
Learn, “cow” vs. “bull” as Perry defines them, coverage vs. critical thinking (Nelson),
“backward design” and assignment-centeredness (Walvoord), teaching freshmen (Leamnson),
etc.]
The challenge from Nelson (1999) and “How People Learn” (1999) is to design experiences
for students that allow them to discover patterns and ways of organizing the “facts” of my
discipline into concepts that make sense. In order to do this effectively, I must take the time
to understand how novice learners see the facts, examples and experiences presented to them.
In addition, assuming my goal is for my students to learn how to think more like an expert in
my field than a novice over the course of the semester, I need to not only evaluate what they
understand, but also evaluate what they do not understand and why. Subsequent assignments
and learning experiences must then give students the opportunity not only to progress in the
discovery and application of patterns and connections but also must provide students who
have not yet meaningfully organized the facts of the field opportunities to do so.
Another challenge from the literature that is central to the intervention I have undertaken is
that articulate by Walvoord and Anderson (1998) to offer a course that is assignmentcentered. As an introductory survey course that includes at least seven business disciplines,
CBA 110 is a challenging course to make assignment-centered versus coverage-centered. As
it currently stands, the course is likely 85% assignment-centered. The four individual exams
in the course, which in total account for 40% of the student’s course grade, are continually
undergoing revision to make them less based on what students know in terms of information
and more based on what students can do in terms of higher order critical thinking (e.g.,
synthesize, interpret, analyze, apply). Yet, nearly 40% of the exams are still based on
information recall. Holding exams aside, however, the remainder of the course assignments
and the majority of in-class time are designed to be assignment-based or, as Walvoord and
Anderson say (p. 53), to be focused on the “processing part of learning”. Of course, this
requires I firmly communicate to students that the “first exposure part of learning” is their
responsibility: carefully reading the text before coming to class, considering the reading
review slides I post on Blackboard for each reading assignment, and completing other
“homework” assignments. Making this shift was not comfortable for me. In order to do this,
I needed to sacrifice a lot of material and greatly reduce the span of coverage. That said, I do
believe the sacrifice accomplished a greater goal and that the course has a much sharper
focus for both me and the student. Students appeared to be less overwhelmed by the course
now than when I first taught it with the mentality of “I have to get through all of this
material”. Now, their central learning objective and my central teaching objective is to
“recognize and articulate the inter-relationships among the functional areas of business”.
7.
What have I learned (or what new hypotheses have I developed) so far?
Through this intervention I have learned that freshman students are capable of mastering the
critical thinking task that I have asked of them. However, I also learned that they need to not just
be shown what mastery of the task looks like which is what I had been doing via the following:
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Model the skill of identifying and articulating connections among business disciplines in
every class meeting
Provide students with “good” examples of previous student work on this assignment
Throughout the semester students watch video cases of real company application of
various business functions. With each viewing, students are asked to identify and discuss
ways in which these videos reflect the inter-related nature of business functions. The
instructor supplements student discussion.
Rather, the students need to be given practice performing the required task as well as to be given
support in performing the task the makes the steps as explicit and discrete as possible.
8.
Where will I go from here?
During the spring semester, I began analyzing the “before and after” practice paragraphs as well
as the paragraphs submitted as part of the term project using a Primary Trait Analysis (Walvoord
and Anderson, pp. 67-91). The traits included are:
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Appropriate classification of the article
Appropriate reference in the concept paragraph to terminology and concepts from the
business function under which the article is classified
Examples in the concept paragraph that indicate a correct understanding of the business
function
Connection of the primary article topic to other business functions
Articulation in the integration paragraph of feasible connections between other business
functions and the business function under which the article is classified
Are there any obvious connections to other business functions are not included in the
integration paragraph?
Once the analysis is completed, the hope is that this intervention can be presented to a wider
audience including colleagues at Rider as well as colleagues at other institutions through
workshops, conferences and, perhaps, publication.
9.
How might my findings be extended? How might they affect a) acculturation of
freshmen to disciplinary epistemologies in my department and b) integration of intro
courses with upper-level ones?
The primary affect of this assessment will likely be evidenced in upper-level Business Core
courses. From the CBA 110 Introduction to Business course students move into a series of
courses that provide function specific, semester-long introductions to the various areas of
business covered in CBA 110. These areas include: two courses in accounting and one course
each in marketing, management, production & operations, social & legal environment of
business, finance, and management information systems. Students who have understood the
integrated nature of business functions and who have been exposed to the basic tenets of each
business in CBA 100 should have a “big picture” framework into which they can sort the key
concepts covered in these various Business Core courses. The final course in the Business Core
and capstone course for all business majors is BUS 400, Strategic Management. It is in this
course that the integration of business functions is once again a primary focus. From a
curriculum perspective, the expectation in BUS 400 is that students who came to understand the
concept that business functions are integrated as freshman (in CBA 110) are now, at the end of
their academic careers, able to apply that concept to real business decision making and analysis
situations.
APPENDIX A:
BUSINESS FUNCTIONS APPLICATIONS & INTEGRATION GRID
Accounting
Explicit Article
Reference #1
Explicit Article
Reference #2
Implication #1
Implication #2
Implication #3
Computer/
Mgmnt. Info.
Systems
Economics
Finance
Management
Marketing
Production
&
Operations
APPENDIX B: Student Evaluations of the Term Project and the Categorizing Grid
Evaluation of the Project (5 point scale 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree)
4.52
Aspects of Project
Understand Inter-relationships
Broad Perspective of
Business
4.33
Understand Business World
4.33
Practice Critical Thinking
Mean Agreement
4.14
Practice Research
3.90
4.43
4.00
4.10
4.20
4.30
Mean Agreement
4.40
4.50
4.60
Evaluation of Categorizing Grid (5 point scale 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree)
Contributed to Successful
Project Completion
4.20
Contribution of Grid
Increased Understanding of
Project Expectations
4.38
Helped in Composing
Integration Paragraphs
4.25
Helped in Composing
Concept Paragraphs
Mean Agreement
4.15
Helped ID Business Areas in
Articles
3.90
4.48
4.00
4.10
4.20
4.30
Mean Rating
4.40
4.50
4.60
APPENDIX C: TERM PROJECT GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
Concept Paragraph Grade Distribution
9
8
8
7
# of Student Earning Grade
7
6
5
# of Grades in Range
4
3
3
3
3
2
2
1
0
0
0
C- (70-72)
D (60-69)
0
A (93-100) A - (90-92) B+ (87-89)
B (83-86)
B- (80-82)
C+ (78-79)
Range of Grades
C (73-77)
Integration Paragraph Grade Distribution
9
8
8
# of Students Earning Grade
7
6
6
5
5
5
# of Grades in Range
4
3
2
1
1
1
0
0
0
C+ (78-79)
C (73-77)
C- (70-72)
0
A (93-100) A - (90-92) B+ (87-89)
B (83-86)
B- (80-82)
Range of Grades
D (60-69)