Addressing the gaps between higher education research and management education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to address the gaps between the higher education research, and management education. These two fields seem to have developed with surprisingly little interaction, an impression that is reinforced by citation count. As a guide to redressing this situation, this paper explores an important subset of the higher education literature, sometimes called the “student learning” research, and its implications for management education. This research underpins government-sponsored surveys of program quality in Britain and Australia. I argue that it offers new insights into course structure, pedagogy and assessment. If we want students to understand, evaluate and critically analyze management situations, it is counterproductive to use pedagogies or assessments that higher education research has shown to actually undermine these objectives. The student learning literature offers guidelines for course design and simple approaches to course evaluation. Interventions based on this research have shown remarkable improvements in learning outcomes. Implications for practice and opportunities for research are noted throughout the paper.