use of role-playing to help students understand information systems case studies, The

Journal of Information Systems Education, Jul 2003 by Kerr, Don, Troth, Ashlea, Pickering, Alison

ABSTRACT

A role-playing approach that introduced "real world" cases of information systems issues in business was compared to the traditional approach of discussing case studies for 32 first year university information systems students. Results showed students considered the role-play approach to be superior to the traditional case study discussions, although observers of role-play were not as enthusiastic as participants. Students considered the role-play approach helped them understand how information systems can be used in business. They also considered that role-play enhanced their learning and they felt very comfortable with the role-playing approach. The authors suggest that role-playing is useful for first year students provided that all members of the tutorial class participate and sufficient preparation done by teaching staff before the tutorial. Students suggested that they would feel more comfortable if each character in the role-play consisted of two or three students. This would reduce the stress associated with one person having to field all questions with the additional benefit of having all students involved.

Keywords: Case studies, Role-play, First-year Business information systems students

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the primary concerns in the discipline of Information Systems is helping students understand the practical aspects of the integration of information systems into business. For example introductory texts such as O'Brien (1999) and Oz (2002) make extensive use of "real world" case studies and problems to assist students in their understanding of how information technology fits into business. Huff and Lucas (2002) describe business cases as "a vehicle for teaching management concepts and this method is best known from "case method" schools, notably the Harvard Business School". Huff et al (2002) have stated, "when we have taught information systems using the traditional lecture method we have been left with disinterested students and a feeling that the textbook answer does not reflect the messiness and complexity of actual organisations". Huff et al (2002) describe the case approach as "a case history of a real situation faced by a real person or persons in a real organisation." The authors consider it to be an unbiased, textual "snapshot" of a company in which the reader implicitly assumes the role of the decisionmaker. The case is meant to challenge readers to answer the question "What would you do here?"

According to the University of Melbourne (2002), case studies in Information Systems encourage students to "be familiar with the experiences of a variety of organisations as they design, develop, implement, and use information systems. In addition students will have experience in dealing with the complexity, politics, and reality of information systems in actual organisational contexts. The students are also expected to develop analytical, synthesis, listening, and presentation skills by having experience with the case method of learning. They are also expected to develop the know how to learn and generalise from the experiences of individual organisations; and be exposed to the operations and culture of organisations, both well and poorly run, in various countries". These transferable skills are what Light and Cox (2001) describe as characteristic of "lifelong learning" and are important attributes for graduates, as it allows them to continue to learn new knowledge, skills and practices.

However, disadvantages in using cases include students not taking the case seriously enough because some of the advantages of realism can be lost Huff et al (2002). These authors suggest that this can be overcome by the instructor taking a dim view of students being late or missing classes and allocating at least 40% of each student's course grade for class participation.

Biggs (2001) describes three levels of teaching. Level one which focuses on what the student is (emphasis on good or bad students), level two which focuses on what the teacher does (emphasis on the teacher's transmission of concepts and understandings) and level three which focuses on what the student does (emphasis on teaching as supporting learning). The approach designed to overcome late or missing students as outlined by Huff et al (2002) appears to fit into the level one teacher as described by Biggs (2001) and does not appear to be helpful if we are trying to focus on what the student does as evidenced in level three teaching.

An introductory course titled "Business Information Systems" is designed to include case studies in tutorial sessions. The concepts discussed during tutorial sessions are evaluated through short answer questions in the final examination. Student feedback from past classes indicates that some students have become bored with the case studies. This could be a reflection of some students not taking the case seriously enough. Whatever the reason, it was concluded that other methods of conducting case studies needed to be implemented. According to Toohey (1999), role-playing seemed to offer an alternative approach to the traditional tutorial format.