CCE Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

The effect of competence-based simulations on management skills enhancements in e-learning courses

Event Name/Location

Raanana, Israel / February 10-11, 2015

Presentation Date

2-10-2015

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of 2015 Chais Conference for the Study of Innovation and Learning Technologies

Description

There is a growing interest in the assessment of tangible skills and competence among higher education in the United States. Specifically, there is an increase in the offerings of competency-based assessments, and some academic institutions are offering college credits for individuals who can demonstrate adequate level of competency on such assessments. An increased interest has been placed on competence-based computer simulations that can assist learners in traditional and online-courses to gain tangible skills. There has been an acceptable instrument used to measure a set of 12 management skills, as part of business and management courses. While computer simulations and competency-based projects, in general and in management in particular, have demonstrated great value, there are still limited empirical results on their impact in online learning courses. Thus, we have developed a quasi-experimental research, using such instrument on preand post-tests, to collect the set of 12 management skills from online learners attending courses that included both competence-based computer simulations and those that didn’t. Our data included a total of 253 responses. All 12 management skill measures demonstrated very high reliability, results consistent with prior literature. Our results indicate that all 12 skills of the competence-based computer simulations had higher increase than those that didn’t. A t-test on the mean increases indicated an overall statistically significant difference for six of the 12 management skills enhancements between the experimental and control groups. Our findings appear to demonstrate that overall computer simulations and competency-based projects do provide added value when it comes to management skill enhancements.

First Page

34E

Last Page

41E

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