Experiential learning in management education: Evaluating the practice-turn

Experiential and socially-situated learning theories suggest that practice should be introduced in the business curriculum through a pedagogy based on four blocks that closely represent managerial practice. First, managerial learning experiences should be based on (1) ill-defined problems because this is the type of problems that best captures the complexity of managerial practice. Similarly, learners should not only articulate but act in the world. They must (2) execute their business solutions in real life. Additionally, learners must (3) closely interact with an authentic professional environment to absorb the nature of that practice. Last, (4) reflection is necessary to transform experience into learning. As an outcome of this pedagogical design, students shall acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes. While the relevance of these four blocks as representations of managerial practice is well-grounded in learning theory and managerial practice, three issues require further examination. (1) To what extent are these four blocks present in the business school curriculum? (2) What competencies does a learning environment comprised of these four building blocks promote and are these competencies transferred to professional practice? (3) How precisely do these four building blocks function to promote managerial competencies in students? The first question is addressed in a conceptual paper exploring how the three most popular approaches for introducing practice into the business curriculum—case method, internships and PBL—incorporate the four blocks. Results suggest that none of these three approaches incorporates all of them but PBL provides the most prone environment for adaptation. The retrospective nature of the case method prevents students from executing their solutions or interacting with the environment where the problem originated. Internships deliver action yet relying heavily on the will and the interest of external organisations to be educational. This can result in learning experiences that trap the learner into an employer-driven or instrumental agenda that does not require solving ill-defined problems or performing critical reflection. Differently, in PBL, the real world problems come to the students and not the other way around. This enables the business school to have more control over the learning experience. I can select problems that are relevant and ill-defined; ensure that students work under the supervision of an experienced lecturer and safeguard that action is carefully supported by reflection. The second research question is addressed based on the case of the Management Experience Programme (MEP), in which the design is in line with the four building blocks. MEP alumni were asked open questions that explored what they have learned during MEP and if learning outcomes were transferred to professional practice. Results show that MEP fosters students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes—competencies thoroughly transferred to practice. The third research question was also based on MEP. Students, alumni, lectures and company-representatives were asked to explain how exactly the four blocks operate to promote knowledge, skills and attitudes. Ill-defined problems set the stage, where learners interact with theory and with each other to envisage solutions to problems that are complex and cross-disciplinary. When the solutions are executed, initial propositions do not unfold as expected and conflict arises, forcing students to re-think their theories and surpass the contextual difficulties imposed by the external world. This process catalyses knowledge and skills fostered at the planning stage while developing attitudes like self-knowledge and self-efficacy. Connecting this problem-solving process with a real work environment allows learners to observe and interact with real practitioners, shaping knowledge and skills to meet the reality of organisational life. Last, reflection is necessary to foreground all these competencies. But not just any reflection: one based on open discussion of the experience thorough dialogue among the different parties involved (students, lecturers, organisations)