Preparation for the real business world: empirical research in the MBA finance curriculum

College Student Journal, June, 2005 by Angeline M. Lavin, Stephen K. Johnson

Graduate students are generally older than traditional college students. They also tend to want more "control" over what they learn in addition to having their own life experiences respected. Murry, et. al. [1997] maintain that faculty members erroneously assume that graduate students possess the requisite library and research skills relevant to their areas of study. However, significant changes frequently transpire in the world of academic libraries, especially with the array of electronic databases available today. For many graduate students, particularly those who either attended smaller colleges or who have been away from college for awhile, today's information technology capabilities are terrifying.

Keating [1991] also sees many faculty members expecting students to learn through a "trial-and-error" process. Students are assigned research projects with few guidelines or models; they are told to use their own creativity. However, if this creativity fails to match that faculty member's expectations, they are downgraded and even belittled.

Pedagogical Value of Research in the Curriculum

Rosenthal [1999] argues that experiential learning (or what Nikolova-Eddins and Williams [1997] term "research-based learning") is a significant factor in making higher education pedagogy more relevant to diverse student populations and should be a strategy to match different student learning styles with complex subject matter. Miller and Browning [2000] write that student research can lead to effective student learning and believes it reinforces the relationship between the concepts taught and "the practices of the organization," which helps students grasp abstract concepts. Nikolova-Eddins and Williams [1997] propose "research-based learning" (RBL) as a model for merging the best practices of research and education. RBL more than enhances students' academic learning; it also prepares them to function in an increasingly competitive and complex professional world by encouraging the practices of team-work, problem-solving and critical-thinking. Moreover, these research skills will mirror many of the research and development realities that student face in their workplaces.

Addison concurs with Nikolova-Eddins and Williams [1997], Murry, et. al. [1997], and Rosenthal [1999], believing that research projects of this genre enhance a student's analytical and writing skills as well as their ability to tie together many important concepts addressed in lectures, class readings, and case studies. In addition, concepts such as randomization, sampling, operational definitions, and research ethics are more meaningful when students apply them to their research. Addison, a psychology instructor, concludes by describing the research project as the capstone experience for most any psychology major [1996].

Anisfeld [1987] designed a graduate course titled, "Reading Critically in Child Development" that arose from his concern that psychology graduate students accepted the conclusions and interpretations of empirical studies at face value without independently examining the results. The author developed eleven guidelines on how to critically decipher empirical-oriented articles, which can be used to provide guidance to students as they undertake the literature review process on research projects. Brems [1994] discusses the impact the psychology department at the University of Alaska at Anchorage has had in demystifying and structuring the empirical research process beginning in the freshmen year.