Abstract:

In China, the course “Management Science” and some other quantitative courses such as “Operation Research” and “Decision Making Technology” are becoming more and more popular to the students, especially to the graduate students. Many students think that these courses are helpful, but they often find it rather difficult to understand the theories in these courses, not to mention applying these theories and approaches to practice. Compared with America and some other countries, the teaching ideas, contents and methods of these courses in China are far from advanced. The main problems include: ① over- emphasizing the technique of deducing formula and the algorithms; ② solving the models by hand instead of computer in most universities; ③ neglecting the ability of establishing models and applying the models to real system. The existing problems in teaching have been discussed in education circles in China. A few universities have introduced some new teaching methods. However, there are very few studies on why we need to improve and how to improve the teaching in theses courses.

This paper analyzes the characteristics of these courses and the abilities emergently needed by the graduate students of management. An alternative is presented to improve the teaching for these course aimed at promoting the abilities of graduate students. This new alternative is focused on training the following abilities of the students: ① the ability to find scientific problems from a real system; ② the ability to describe a complex system, draw main factors and then establish a model; ③ the ability to explain and improve the real system by analyzing the results of running models.

The new alternative has been used in the teaching of Shanghai Maritime University of China and got fine feedback from the students. A criteria system is established to evaluate the results of promoting the abilities of the students by teaching. In terms of this criteria system, an evaluation is made to judge the effect of the new alternative. The evaluation result shows that the new alternative is reasonable and practical.

Keywords:

Management science, teaching for the graduate students, promoting the abilities.