A study of students' perceived satisfaction with business games as a teaching instrument: for mid-management subjects in community colleges

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1974

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This investigation was concerned with the use of business games as a strategy for teaching mid-management subjects to vocationally oriented students at a two-year community college. The purpose of the study was to determine if vocationally oriented students perceived business games as a satisfactory instrument for learning mid-management decision-making skills. The research project was designed to determine the statistical relationship between vocational students' perceived satisfaction with business games as a teaching strategy and vocational students' perceived satisfaction with other methods of teaching mid-management skills. A review of the related literature relevant to business games and other strategies for management development and training revealed that, in addition to business games, the lecture, case studies, group discussions and programmed Instructions are considered important and widely used strategies. To gather student perceptions of these teaching strategies, a semantic differential device was prepared as a research instrument and administered in April, 1974, to a group of mid-management students at Lee College, Baytown, Texas. A factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify evaluative, activity, and potency loadings, and the resultant factor scores were analyzed using F tests, t' tests and Z statistics. The findings were that students1 evaluative perceptions of business games were higher than their evaluative perceptions of lectures, case studies and programmed instruction. Further, students perceived business games as being more potent or stronger than lectures as a teaching instrument for mid-management subjects. Finally, no difference in students' perceived satisfaction with business games and group discussions was found.

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