Abstract:

The main purpose of this Paper is to explain and investigate how the integration of problem based learning (PBL) curriculum in an MBA program impacts the learner experience. The learner experience includes three stances which are personal, pedagogical and interactional. The beneficial aspect of using PBL is the obligatory discussion of problems that activates relevant prior knowledge and facilitates the processing of the acquisition of new information which refers to the first goal. Additionally PBL has the potential to increase in each student confidence and helps them develop key interpersonal skills such as teamwork, time management, and problem identification. Metacognitive skills are required and are challenged which allows the students to evaluate a problem and monitor it throughout the 10 months. It also capitalizes on synergies among cognitive, affective and behavioral learning. Being held responsible for one’s own education and project increases self-motivation and students gain more independence from their tutors. Although the usage of PBL experience definitely has it beneficial aspect, the preparation time is consuming and for each student there is a parallel self-learning process which is evident from the start of applied business project (ABP) that might overwhelm some of the students. Due to the fact that this approach of learning method is not very conventional, students will be confronted with difficulties such as what elements should be considered as important, which steps to prioritize leading to a confusing experience itself. By focusing on real-world problems, ABPs helps students appreciate multiple perspectives, recognize none rational elements of decision making. Students on the ABP should lead the learning issues through research on the problem at hand and refer the problem back to the problem designer. This increases the attention to solve the problem as it arouses information seeking behaviors. One example of an ABP was conducted in a 5 star hotel chain Europe. The objectives one study was to investigate that the key to increasing guest satisfaction is, in fact, to revolutionize the relationship between guests and staff. The methodology for this research consisted of a qualitative study. Participants of this study were employees of the five hotels in Europe. The sample was 86 participants; 4 Managers, 14 members of the executive committees, 29 department managers, 7 supervisors, and 32 crew-level staff. The results indicated that at this level guests considered that a more personalised service would increase guest satisfaction. The hotel is investigating the dimensions of quality in order to make an innovative and creative change to the regulation of quality across all of its European location. In this way, guest experiences can be made maximally positive, as well as standard and consistent.

Keywords:

Problem based learning, applied business projects, matacognitive skills.