Busines Education and Research

Recently my research partners and I put the finishing touches on our papers for the 2009 DPE (Delta Pi Epsilon) Research conference to be held in San Francisco.

One of the papers has to do with the use of Grounded Theory approaches in Business Education research.

There has been little qualitative work done in the Business Education area. In fact there has been little quality work done in the Business Education area. But that is really a 'trick' sentence. The problem is that there really hasn't been a good definition of Business Education since "Office Education" went out of style.

My statement is about the field in general. This doesn't mean to say that there hasn't been good quality research work in the individual areas such as entrepreneurship, accounting, economics, marketing, etc. There have been good studiess in these areas.

But there haven't been good studies of the field as a whole.

When I look at the official research needs in the area I always feel as if I am looking at a list that master's students with very limited experience have devised as a starter for initiating their master's research.

It seems hard to find depth. It seems hard to find a logical, comprehensive stream of research leading to good theory and explanation of the field. It seems hard to find anything more than description.

I'm not the most 'qualitative' of researchers but qualitative research allows us to ask questions that are crucial at this moment in our professions history.

What is Business Education? What do Business Educators really do? think? experience? strive for?

What do our students experience? think? strive for? What do our students want/need from us?

Its my opinion that the field of Business Education is in danger of disappearing into technology (not business technology just plain technology) and fragmenting into its component parts - see what has happened to consumer education, economic education and marketing education.

In depth, good quality explorations of the area and deep, thoughtful discussion about our future and how we will attain that future are our only hope.

Redefining Business Education

I mentioned a few entries ago that I had established a wiki to discuss the future of business education. So far 4 people have joined the wiki and 3 have made comments. The wiki url is: http://thefutureofbusinesseducation.wikispaces.com/

These are the comments I made today:

I read the discussion topics concerning keyboarding and redefining business education with interest. The contributors - one an experienced and effective teacher and the other a recent graduate of our Teacher Education Program who is committed to making a difference - make the point that things are not right in Business Education in Saskatchewan (and I would extend that to many other jurisdictions) I empathize with their plights in finding solutions to the problems they face as Business Educators in a rapidly changing environment.

But I worry too. I worry that we only see Business Education in Saskatchewan in the light of the Practical and Applied Arts - a pre-vocational perspective seen as a 'second class" level of the curriculum. I worry that we only see Business Education in Saskatchewan as I.P., Accounting and Entrepreneurship - the traditional courses that have been subsumed by the Practical and Applied Arts.

I want to see us working on liberating Business Education from the Practical and Applied Arts.

I want to see us working on establishing a profile in the province as a subject area that provides important life-altering curriculum - for all students.

I want to see us expanding our notions of business education - Marketing in general, Sports and Entertainment Marketing, Economics (which is being forced to die in Saskatchewan), Personal Financial Management, and more

I want to see more enthusiasm and excitement about the fabulous courses we can create and offer to our students

Business Education in Saskatchewan

A number of years ago the Department of Education (or whatever its name was at the time) decided to create an area of study called the Practical and Applied Arts. From what I remember the elements of this area were based on the economic development needs of the province in the near future. All courses which had even a sniff of vocationalism around them were relegated to this area, including any course that had previously been designated Business Education.

Now, I do admit, for a while there was a flurry of curriculum development activity. But the emphasis on 'core' curriculum, academics and university preparation buried Practical and Applied Arts in the hinterlands of secondary school electives.

In Business Education's case this was compounded by the rise of interest in computers, technology, the internet, multi-media, etc.

So today we face the situation where there doesn't seem to be a place or an identity for Business Education.

It is a shame!

If you go to the Evergreen Curriculum site for Sask Learning you will find Law under Social Sciences (not so much of a problem for me other than the fact that Social Studies teachers rarely have a background in law studies), you won't find Economics (I find it incredible that in a province where all we seem to talk about these days is economic development we don't offer our high school students the opportunity to find out what economics means!).

However you will find Accounting (in the Practical and Applied Arts Area) under Care and Hospitality (does that mean businesses in other sectors don't use or need accounting?).

You'll also find Career Education and Entrepreneurship under "other"

You won't find Personal Financial Management or Marketing or Consumer Education or Introduction to Business nor any of the multitude of potential business courses.

Yikes!!!

It is a shame that Business Education is relegated to the merely vocational.

It is a shame that the subjects that are offered are viewed as inferior to the required areas of study by making the whole area an elective area.

It is a shame that courses such as Personal Financial Management are not offered to students who will, all, one day (today) need to navigate through a world that demands that they take care of themselves physically, intellectually, emotionally, culturally and financially.

We offer courses that assist with the other elements of our lives - why don't we offer courses that assist with the financial aspects of our lives.

Economic Education and Business Education

A few weeks ago I attended the National Council on Economic Education/National Association of Economic Educators/Global Association of Teachers of Economics annual conference in Denver.

The conference was well attended but I am sure that there were fewer than 10 people in attendance that viewed themselves as Business Educators. The focus was clearly on university level Economics professors and secondary school economics teachers - with a passing acknowledgment of social studies education.

I find this curious.

Business is built on economic concepts. Business teachers are much better prepared to teach economics. The application of economic concepts to business and consumer problems is that students understand and can use in many aspects of their lives.

I find it interesting that a major contributor to Business Education theory and practice is the Policies Commission for Business and Economic Education. The PCBEE is supported by three organizations; the Association for Career and Technical Education/Business Education Division, Delta Pi Epsilon, and the National Business Education Association.

Curious that the NCEE/NAEE/GATE aren't a part of this process - especially when Economic Education is a visible part of the name of the organization.

The conference was good as far as conferences go - many presentations - some good - some a waste of time - many exhibitors - some good resources - some not so good.

I do encourage anyone interested in quality resources to look at the material offered by NCEE.

And I do encourage membership in GATE - its free and the potential for this organization is very good

Business, this blasted cold and other stuff

It has been 2 weeks since I have posted anything here. The subject line says it all. I am now on the downside (I hope) of the sixth cold I have suffered through since September! There was a 4 or 5 day period where anything but sitting still was out of the question. Being in bed wasn't an option because of the coughing, the incessant coughing

The Regina Business Education Association meeting that I talked about in the prior post was a great success. There were 35 or so business educators from all types of schools and institutions. We had a good business meeting where we discussed the role and purpose of the organization and came up with an idea for providing resources to our members. Then the pre-interns made a presentation describing the Personal Financial Management course they are developing.

The professional development idea was to have business educators share innovative lesson plans. I sent out an email soliciting these lesson plans and lesson plan ideas and offered to edit and format them and then to produce a cd with all of the submissions. I also suggested that we have a section of the cd that would list websites that have business education lesson plans. I have had a great response - many people have sent in ideas, lesson plans and interesting websites.

If you are reading this and have lesson plans and/or ideas for lesson plans and/or lesson plan websites please let me know.

The other stuff has to do with the Policies Commission for Business and Economic Education. I am on a committee that is dealing with interdisciplinary teaching and learning in Business and Economic Education. If you are involved in or know of these kinds of initiatives or if you just have thoughts about interdisciplinarity in Business Education please let me know