Abstract:

This paper presents a heuristic research on the use of a mixed methodology to teach Business Administration at the Dept. of Management (University of Turin, Italy). The learning object is based on the use of the interactive video and the case method.

Current studies on neurocinematics and neurocognitive approaches to films, narrations and mediated experiences highlight the power of the image and movies to favour the identification in heroes and characters of a visual fiction product. According to cognitive studies on neural mirrors, spectators can feel an active experience with films, such as a sort of incorporation with the emotive texture of the narration. Unquestionably, an aesthetics experience favors a stepwise merging between the user and the character. Videogamers are subject to the same logics with their game’s avatars: each gamer can feel inside the game, acting with the images. There is a carnal relation that link user and the media environment: the first one modifies the second and vice versa. In some cases, films and videogames seem to merge: the Black Mirror’s episode Bandersnatch (2018) is archetypal of this mode of produce an involving interactive audiovisual tale.

Case method is by far the oldest technique, which we can even trace it back to the Sorbonne of the Middle Ages, where it was used in teaching, and to highlight some difficult points, both to clarify the application of laws or principles in case of complex problems.
The objectives that the technique pursues are substantially two:
1. the first, focused on the specific contents of the case, is aimed at learning skills on how to diagnose and intervene in situations similar to those presented in the case discussed and discussed. The content of the case represents the "text" of reference for future and similar work situations or not in which participants will decide; then agrees that the way is at the level of the contents, akin to the real scope of the participants.
2. the second objective, focused on the methods of approach to the case, is to favor the development of analytical skills and decision by studying complex situations and problems. The case is, so to speak, a "pretext" useful for developing the ability to understand and evaluate complex situations, to identify possible options, to make the most appropriate choices to solving problems. In such a situation the case must not, generally, be akin to the real working context.
The method, therefore, is fundamentally incompatible with the very idea of a standard solution: it presupposes that a problem, reported in its social context, does not admit a single solution, but that there may be different solutions, depending on the one who solves the problem.

Starting from these guidelines, we have ideated an interactive video (produced by the research team and available on the H5P platform) based on a single case study of the economic discipline of Business Administration; we have proposed the prototype to our students to enhance their knowledge and their decision making’s strategies and skills. Some results of this experimental mixed method will be explain in the paper.

Keywords:

Interactive video, case method, emotive involving, decision making, innovative method.