Teaching Causation and Effectuation in the Large Classroom: A Production–Trade Game

Abstract

Researchers claim that experiential learning approaches (e.g., gamification) are well-suited to management and entrepreneurship education. However, this research has been conducted mostly in small classroom settings. With the increases in the number of university business students, many business courses have also increased in size. The large classroom setting introduces new pedagogic concerns, in particular regarding the complexity of the teaching–learning environment, as a result of students having diverse educational backgrounds, skills, and learning styles. This article explores this concern in its investigation of the ways in which business higher education can prompt various business behaviors among students in large classrooms.By utilizing the gamification of concepts, we created an experiential learning exercise—the Strategic Business Game. Questionnaire surveys conducted with the 126 university students enrolled into two majors during the game reveal that this educational learning experience prompts the students’ causation and effectuation behaviors. In this educational learning experience, the complexity of the large classroom is seen as an advantage and gives the educators an opportunity to increase the quality of the student interaction. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the appropriateness of experiential learning through gamification on individuals’ business behaviors as revealed in large classes in management and entrepreneurship education.

Pedagogical Approaches to Responsible Entrepreneurship Education

“…A major challenge is how to overcome the problem of large classrooms, especially when teaching the characteristics of business actions. that is, entrepreneurial action and causal action [83]. Due to dwindling resources, many institutions admit a large cohort and continue to rely on the traditional methods of learning, which turns the teacher into a knowledge transferor, thereby limiting creativity, critical thinking, discovery, evaluation and the exploitation of opportunities.…”

“…It is essential to reconfigure the EE curricular and extra-curricular learning activities to limit the barriers to EE [83,84]. Reconfiguring around stakeholders enables the extra-curricular (outdoor) learning relevance of knowledge or skills [7,[85][86][87].…”

“…Reconfiguring around stakeholders enables the extra-curricular (outdoor) learning relevance of knowledge or skills [7,[85][86][87]. Experiential learning engages the students in their learning process, reduces one-way communication and places the learner at the center [83]. Creativity and innovation should form the foundation of EE to enable students to develop knowledge on how to develop their creativity and devise the innovations required to foster a competitive advantage [7,88].…”

“…[71], p. 18. Experiential learning approaches, such as gamification, are well-suited to management and EE [83]. Entrepreneurial curricular learning should be aligned with the classroom and outdoor experiences to enable students to develop subject specialisms, employability skills and career aspirations.…”

Teaching Perspectives on Experiential Learning in Large Classes

“…It showcased a variety of contributions which variously examined how student engagement in large classes can be enhanced through increasing participant diversity (Donovan & Hood, 2021), inviting industry experts to collaborate with faculty on assessment (Lyons & Buckley, 2021), designing unique events that mirror the intensity of an entrepreneurial start-up (Hilliard, 2021) or using multiple sources of feedback that could improve learning outcomes (Black et al, 2021). Other articles demonstrated how the very nature of classes with larger student enrolments could facilitate opportunities for experiential learning that are not replicable in smaller classes (Memar et al, 2021; Page et al, 2021).…”