Abstract:

This experience was part of the subject Market Research Techniques during the last academic year 2008/2009. It’s an elective subject in the last year’s training program of the Degree in Business Administration, Jaume I University of Castellón.
Problem-based at the learning (PBL) is a student-centered instructional strategy in which students collaboratively solve problems and reflect on their experiences. Some characteristics of PBL are: Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended problems, students work in small collaborative groups and teachers take on the role as "facilitators" of learning. Accordingly, students are encouraged to take responsibility for their group and organize and direct the learning process with support from a tutor or instructor.
The first objective is to choose at the beginning of the course a topical subject or a research question. Last year we chose the particular problems of the banking sector, undergoing in a profound crisis. In such a way, the final project was developed about the organization of the first Bank Marketing Conference: Financial Crisis, what happens now? Addressed to an audience composed mainly of banking sector professionals and university students. The conference was organized only by students of the subject Market Research Techniques, with a budget that they should get of 1500€. Furthermore, they should participate in the meeting presenting the main conclusions of the research that they had done through the semester, to share their knowledge with other four presentations of expert practitioners in bank marketing. In such a way that the students worked in two different ways, but highly complementary and necessary. On the one hand, seek the highest technical quality of research work to be done and work on their communication skills to be able to present it to a professional audience. On the other hand the organization of a professional-level conference.
The overall aim of this project is to provide students a large variety of tools to be able to manage easily in situations where they have to face sizeable projects, in which they have to work in groups and even coordinate with other teams that they will have, finally, to present in front of an audience. It aims to develop some skills as:
- Cooperation: Some competitiveness is encouraged but always in an environment of comradeship and constructive, friendly and elegant criticism.
- Communicative Skills: Improve the oral presentations, being more effective during the line of argument. To defend the individual ideas in front of a critical audience.
- Empathy: We encourage students to be able to get in the situation of their classmates to understand better their problems and their points of view.
- Critical Thinking: From the own personal reflection and the recommendations of the group, we set a common goal, which is to improve our skills, each within its capacities, through critical reflection and continuous improvement objectives. As I said before, always in an atmosphere of cordiality, respect and empathy.
- Self Motivation: As a matter of fact, having a fixed goal and a specific responsibility for each member of the group is really effective. Each student takes the job as their own personal job and not as an external imposition of the teacher being an additional workload.

Keywords:

Problem-based learning, team work skills, bank marketing conference.