Suffering or Having Fun
- Importance of perceived
workload in teaching with
computer simulation
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POON, Tat Hong (Ted)
Department of Management
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
mstpoon@polyu.edu.hk
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Background
• The project covers an experiment
relating to 200 final year Business
students in PolyU.
• The subject involves is Strategic
Management II - the second part of a
one year Strategic Management course.
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The old game
 This course was traditionally
taught with a lecture-case study
approach and the students
usually complain that the
materials are too abstractive and
not realistic enough.
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The New game
• A computer based management
simulation, The Marketplace, was first
introduced in 2000
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Competing teams try to solve the problems
Team
1
Team
8
………
New problems
generated by
new market
situations
Input from various
teams
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The Marketplace
transforms the inputs into
new market situations
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Objective of the project
• This project studies the management of
the students’ learning experience when
computer simulation is used in
problem-based leaning approach
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Issue 1 discussed today
Is workload of a subject (defined
as the time a student is spending in
that subject) correlated with
Contact hours and assigned tasks?
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Issues 2 discussed today
How perceived workload of a
subject affect attitudes of students
toward the subject?
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Research strategy and data
collection techniques
• After the 4th session of the simulation,
questionnaires were distributed to all
the students in the simulation program
• Interview at the end of the semester
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Data presentation and analysis
• In both rounds, about 94% of the students
who registered for the subject returned
usable questionnaire forms
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1. Workload
• In every week, how many hours do you
spend in the Marketplace?
• (Excluding lecture and seminar)
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Reported workload - 2001
45
40
30
25
20
15
10
5
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number of student
14
88
85
82
79
76
73
70
67
64
61
58
55
52
49
46
43
40
37
34
31
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
7
4
0
1
Hour per week
35
Average Hours spent in the
simulation
• Range: 0.5 ~ 40 hours per week
• Average: 6.1 hours per week
• Standard Deviation: 5.1
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How many hour do you spend in
this game per week?
• “Many, many hours.
Sometimes I cannot
sleep at night, I will
switch on the
computer (to take a
look at the game). I
believe I spend about
2 hours per day. It is
just like playing a
computer game.”
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2. Attitudes of the students
• The questionnaires used in Round 2
tested also the attitudes of the students
by asking whether the students would
recommend the subject to other
students.
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Attitudes of the students
• 59% of the students selected either
'definitely yes' or 'yes',
• 23% 'neutral' or 'don't know',
• 17% 'no' or ' definitely no'.
• 'heavy workload' was the typical
disadvantage cited
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Attitudes of the students
• Strong correlation between the amount of
time a student spends in the game and how
he/she feels about the subject.
• The Pearson Chi-square test shows an
Asymptotic Significance (2-sided) of 0.008.
• Most of the students who spend less than
six hours per week in the game tend to favor
the subject.
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Conclusion 1
Perceived Workload of a subject is a very
personal thing:
• it shows great variance among different
students who should have the same
contact hours and assigned tasks.
• it may not correlated well with Contact
hours and assigned tasks.
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Conclusion 2
Perceived workload shows strong
correlation with the attitudes of
students toward a subject
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What can we do?
To improve the attitude of the students
toward the subject/teaching approach,
the perceived workload of the students
should be carefully managed by
• Administrative arrangement
• Perception shift
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Student’s advice
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“You
should be more
committed to the subject.
Do not treat it as an
assignment or homework.
Treat it more like a game
and it will become more
interesting/fun. You will
be more devoted and be
willing to spend more
energy in it. You will not
feel you are suffering
because you have to do an
assignment just to earn
some marks.”
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THANK YOU!
Any question?
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