| Popis: |
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how business professionals involved in experiential online learning can effectively promote business students’ practical management skills development. Another objective is to help business educators to introduce practical relevance in business learning, teaching and assessment through experiential online learning at institutional level. The study adopts a constructivist perspective: new knowledge is constructed from the perspective of an internal researcher, which interacts with the institutional environment and is interrelated with its stakeholders. This study’s research participants are business educators, students, practitioners as well as administrators. The research is conducted within an embedded single-case design while data is collected through various methods and within the researcher’s own institutional context. The research findings section outlines the quantitative outcomes followed by the integrative qualitative discussion, where central categories and their properties and characteristics are presented. The integrative process with the objective to draw theoretical conclusions focusses on three major aspects: namely, practitioners’ effective forms of engagement, business students’ practical management skills development, as well as experiential online learning as the objects of research. In order to address the full scope of the practical aspects, interrelations with the institutional environment are involved. In order to involve practitioners effectively and to institutionalise practitioner-involvement successfully in formally-assessed higher business education, this study suggests a pedagogic framework that defines objectives in terms of practitioners’ instructional orientation and that also adapts their instructional self-conception within an overarching role model. This study further proposes that such a pedagogic framework needs to be harmonised with the intended competence level of learning outcomes and activities, and aligned with educators’ instructional activities and students’ learning in and around the traditional classroom. In addition, this research suggests that the learning context and environment promotes the self-regulated and active engagement of all participants and defines institutional standards and careful integration measures in relation to practitioners’ roles in educational core processes. The thesis concludes by suggesting practical development methods and further research agendas for business educators. |
