Volume
31 Issue 1, Apr 2020
Introduction
Online Teaching in International
Business
Raj
Aggarwal & Yinglu Wu
Research
Articles
Course Delivery Format, Global Openness, and Openness to
Experience in International Business Classes
Jiun-Shiu
Chen, Scott Mooty, Jeffery Stevens & Barron Brown
This research studies the impact of taking an
international business course (IB) under both online and face-to-face methods
on changes in the attitudinal construct global openness. This research also
examines how the personality trait of openness to experience influences the
change in the degree of global openness achieved by the students. Findings show
that taking IB significantly increases students’ degree of global openness in
both online and face-to-face methods; however, the increase is greater with
face-to-face students than online. By dividing the sample into both high versus
low openness to experience and online versus face-to-face, findings show
differences between the high and low openness to experience groups in both
online and face-to-face courses. In face-to-face classes, the results showed
that the low openness students increased their degree of global openness more
than the high openness to experience students. The increase is not found to be
significant with the online high openness group indicating that online IB
education is less effective with high openness to experience students. The
overall results suggest face-to-face teaching is more effective in making
attitudinal changes than online teaching.
Effectiveness of a
Negotiation Simulation Game in IB Learning
Haiyan Yin
This study describes a foreign investment
negotiation simulation game and evaluates its effectiveness on the teaching and
learning of international business. The game involves the application of the
major topics of an introductory international business course to a setting that
is close to the real world, thus allows students to explore the association
between theory and practice. By quantitative and qualitative analysis on the
primary data collected from both face-to-face and online classes at the same
time, the study finds strong evidence that the negotiation simulation game
significantly improves students learning in both class settings, and the poor
performers benefit the most from the simulation game. Evidence also shows that
the simulation game is more effective in enhancing students learning in the
traditional face-to-face class than the online class, indicating class settings
matter. The findings suggest higher-level learning requires deep engagement of
students, and student-centered active learning strategies like the negotiation
simulation game can effectively engage all students, including those who are
difficult to engage with other traditional pedagogical methods. Therefore, the
simulation game can be an important addition to the teaching portfolio to
accommodate students with different learning styles. Moreover, the game offers
an experiential learning opportunity that improves both the cognitive and
affective experiences of students learning, and provides hands-on experience of
business negotiations. Professors, especially those who are searching for an
active learning tool for teaching international business online could benefit
from this study.
Increasing Classroom Engagement in International Business Courses
via Digital Technology
Ilke Kardes
Digital technology is an integral part of the
new generation international business students in higher education. The new
realities of a tech-savvy student profile require some upgrades in classroom
settings within IB education. This study discusses the current challenges of
instructors facing in the classroom. We propose some digital tools that can
help to reduce learning barriers related to the syllabus, attention, real-life
examples, and test anxiety in international business courses. The
conceptualization of the paper is based on student engagement and active
learning environment. We argue that traditional teaching methods have to be
supported with digital technologies to increase teaching effectiveness. We
conduct a combination of primary and secondary data research. In-depth
interviews and teaching insights shared on the Internet help us to collect
information on the challenges in teaching and possible digital solutions to
overcome those obstacles. We propose 22 digital tools that educators can
integrate into the IB classroom to improve the learning experience of students.
Class-attendance and
Online-tests Results: Reflections for Continuous Assessment
Ana Zorio-Grima & Paloma Merello
Sometimes class-attendance is a component (or
requirement) to benefit from the continuous assessment. The objective of this
study is to evidence that some students seem to be getting unfairly penalized
for nonattendance. To address this issue, we provide alternative assessment
solutions taking into account the different profiles of the students. This
study is based on the performance in online tests undertaken in a subject of
Financial Accounting taught in English in two groups at Valencia University
(from Spain). This subject is especially important for International Business
(IB) as managers make decisions based on financial information. In this course,
students learn about the legal accounting framework, from a national and IB
perspective (i.e., national standards and International Financial Reporting
Standards). Difficulty of course contents, students’ study time, students’
university access mark, age, and class-attendance are determining factors of
the mark obtained in online tests if we take into account all the students.
However, for the students whose marks are the best and second best grades, only
the difficulty of course contents, study time, age and parents’ studies are
significant factors. Evidence is found that attendance improves online test
performance significantly for the whole group of students, yet this factor is
not significant considering only the best performing students. Our findings
justify that the continuous assessment system should only require a specific
level of attendance if the online test performance drops below a certain grade
(for instance the second best grade). That way, these students would have an
extra motivation to attend classes but better performing students who are
keeping best and second grades in their online tests will not get penalized if
classes are missed as long as they keep performing well.
Yinglu(Elle) Wu
Associate Professor of Marketing
Managing Editor, Journal of Teaching in International Business (JTIB)
Boler College of Business
John Carroll University
1 John Carroll Blvd
University Heights, OH 44118