Introducing a Problem-Posing Protocol to Encourage Management Students’ Reflections on Sustainability Premises

Abstract

The goal of this article is to examine and develop problem-posing case study teaching methods to promote business students’ reflections on their premises around sustainability practices. Literature on transformative learning in sustainability informed our hypothesis that problem-posing instead of problem-solving case study teaching would yield greater incidences of students’ premise reflections at the deepest level. For our quasi-experimental design, undergraduate students at a business school were presented with a teaching case of corporate sustainability then half were given problem-solving prompts for critical reflection while the other half were given problem-posing prompts. Resultant responses were classified to expose differences in the nature and levels of reflection between these two groups. This pedagogical research indicated that the problem-posing group reached deeper levels of reflections, though further research is needed to better understand this phenomenon. We advocate for the utility of a problem-posing approach in sustainability education. This study contributes a problem-posing protocol for business schools, curricula, and professors, as well as suggestions for further research for theoretical understanding of problem posing for transformative learning in sustainability.