Chapter 5: Marketing education at UKZN
5.2 Discourses
5.2.2 Relevance
5.2.2.3 Relevance of classroom interaction
of functional business stuff” and that offering a vocational area of study such as Marketing to an 18-year-old student is a „travesty‟ (in Glenn, 2011, no page). Also, the heavy emphasis that is placed on application and practice gives rise to a false image of managers as “action oriented rather than thoughtful” whereas both action and reflection are crucial for success (Tapp, 2004, p.581). While Kiel asserts that the primary task of Marketing lecturers should be to teach students
“the tools and techniques of thinking within a marketing context” (1998, p.27), Ramocki contends that in addition to strategies for thinking, transfer strategies also need to be incorporated into Marketing pedagogy because “the ability to transfer marketing knowledge into various environments and situations is extremely important to our students” (2007, p. 11). Accordingly, the South African business community has called for graduates to have “some kind of extended exposure to the work place while at university” (Griesel & Parker, 2009, p.24).
The discourse around „workplace relevance‟ was very prevalent in the data at UKZN , which is not surprising as it relates to wider discourses about the relevance of university education to the achievement of the country‟s socio-economic goals, as noted in Chapter 4, especially in the context of high levels of unemployment. This discourse leads students to construct teaching practices as inappropriate and irrelevant to their future workplace needs and may contribute to some extent to their disengagement from such practices, as shown in the next section.
“…I find some of our lecturers…like if they don’t get feedback they’re just like ‘Okay, whatever’…They move on. And I just think they should rather press…” (Maxine)
…there’s like a handful of interaction, from the same students (Amantha)
Erm…well, I don’t want to speak bad…but, I mean, there was not opportunity for questions, you know… It was just like the…the…the…slides here and just putting the slides after the other, one after the other (Ben).
Class size was frequently mentioned, by both students and lecturers, as an impediment to achieving a more interactive classroom environment. Students found the large classes intimidating, which inhibited their participation in plenary discussions, while lecturers worried about losing control if they set small-group discussions and tasks.
Obviously the lecturer is…is…is dominant. Because the students, er, are quite…I think the students are scared of each other so……it causes them not to be…not to be who they are. ‘Cos some of the people are really open, they can be able to answer questions if the class was small - but because the class is so huge, they can’t…they can’t express their views. They are scared to express their…So the lecturer becomes dominant because the lecturer is used to such an environment. For students, they are not used to…to…to a huge environment (Ben)
Um, I think, ja, obviously the lecturer plays a very big role but I think if we were able to discuss things as a group or…um, sort of if the lecture rooms were maybe…I mean if the amount of students within the lecture were sort of a bit smaller…because I find like the lecturer asks a question and everybody stares blankly at her and is…so, so scared to say anything (Maxine)
Like the only group work you have is to turn to the person next to you and discuss something about the advert. They give you, ja, five minutes. So you’re like “Hi, my name is…”. Two minutes allocated time up, by the way. And you’re talking about this, and it’s all…And then, okay, “Any volunteers?” Then nobody volunteers. Like in my view if it was the thing that everyone or every group will go…so like, okay, your group first, then go…but the thing is you can’t really do that…class is too big (Bongani)
It’s impossible with 250-plus (Kamini)
Also because if you give them discussion questions, they…90% of the time, they’re sitting and discussing…something else (Nisha).
Students also gave other reasons for their reluctance to participate in classroom discussions, including the risk of being wrong, and their level of proficiency in English.
…if people actually started asking questions…it would be so much better, like you’d understand better. Now, everybody doesn’t want to ask questions - that’s including me… I don’t like asking questions ‘cos I just think I’m gonna sound silly (Nothando) What if I’m wrong? The whole class will laugh at me. I mean, wow! I mean…so it’s like that, I mean - trusting ourselves, it’s a problem…trusting ourselves with an answer (Ben) Well, yoh! Um, I think it’s just…it’s being young……and you want to…you want to…I don’t know, to fit in, so if you give a wrong answer……it means there is something wrong about you, so, you know… That’s an assumption on my view. The reason why I would not lift my hand up is…the thought will come to me ‘If I lift my hand high right now and then I answer the question and it’s wrong…’. Or maybe it’s not…it’s not…the English…my English is not that good…is not that much good. And maybe when I’m walking outside…when I’m outside, people will be talking about me, saying ‘Wow, man! This guy doesn’t know how to articulate the question’ and stuff like that. Ja… (Ben)
…she tries to encourage discussions…and ask questions, but the class is just quiet….
Probably they don’t understand…we don’t understand (Thuli)
Um, I notice that there’s some students that, um, tend to be, er, more confident…in explaining and expressing themselves than other people, which intimidates them as well - even though they confidently give the wrong answers, for example (Kiara)
There’s no reason why we can’t participate in class, we’re just being us (Lindiwe).
The nature and volume of the subject matter was another factor mentioned by the lecturers as impacting on classroom interaction.
…look, generally you’ve got to…you’ve got to stand there and you’ve got to play more of a role as a lecturer because they’re not going to respond to, er, the subject material easily (Kamini)
…I do the talking and they do the listening. [Laughs]……I tend to do that…if I’m, er, emphasising a new concept – especially there’s lots of new areas in [module name] at a third level... (Nisha).
So, in contrast to Nisha‟s claim that teaching Marketing was “the most creative way in which to actually interact with students”, and all the lecturers stating that they viewed students as “active partners in constructing learning”, classroom interaction tended to be quite centred on the lecturer and the transmission of knowledge.88 This fits the description of traditional pedagogy in Marketing, provided in Chapter 4. However, this „signature pedagogy‟ (Shulman, 2005a, 2005b) is
88 Another question in the „curriculum self-assessment questionnaire‟ (see Note 74) asked whether the lecturers saw students as: “A. lacking the skills necessary for academic success; B. the subjects of the teaching and learning process; C. active partners in constructing learning; D. disadvantaged by previous schooling”. All three lecturers selected option C.
unlikely to be effective in terms of developing students in ways that are important to the disciplinary Discourse, the practice of marketing and to being effective learners at university and beyond.
A marketer, you’ve actually got to sell yourself. You’ve got to be out front, you’ve got to be there, you’ve got to be extroverted, and part of that is the ability to present…to make physical presentations. It’s one of the toughest things to learn to do, is stand up in front of a…a…a group of people and…and…and present your ideas. It’s one of the toughest things. And, er, I was surprised…I said to them…I’m actually surprised they do no presentation skills, presentation technique at all (Michael)
…if I sit in class and we…we’re speaking about something and I look at those guys and I think ‘Hey, these guys are going to be marketers. Things are going to be boring in this world’… They’re not vibey…I see marketing as, you know, although there’s having lots of fun, it’s serious work as well, but……it’s all about coming up with crazy ideas and crazy things that will catch people’s attention…to sell a product. So, if they’re all like so dead and what not, how will you like get people excited about a product when you’re not excited yourself? They’re not like amped or hyped up to do Marketing (Bongani).
The literature does indicate a shift towards more interactive, discussion based classroom interaction in Marketing and in business studies more generally (Smart et al, 1999; Doherty, 2010), but such a shift is not yet evident in Marketing classes at UKZN. Participants had some suggestions for how classroom interaction could be improved so that Marketing would no longer be just “a sit-down content class” (Bongani). These included moving away from an exclusive focus on the „large-group lecture-only‟ format towards a mix of lectures and small-group tutorial sessions, as well as greater use of case studies and interactive tasks in class, preferably done in small groups.
Cos you find even, like, in all lecture rooms sometimes students, you know, they don’t want to ask questions, they don’t want to participate. But you find that classes that have tuts…that’s where people actually participate more and they understand better, they understand things better, ja (Nothando)
Um…[pause]…maybe some like role-playing; maybe like, um, they give us like a specific object, say ‘Okay, try and market this object to the class’ or something to…to get people going, you know, laughing. I think in that way people will open up and they’ll see it’s not such a sit-down content class. It’s more like, interaction (Bongani)
Especially for [module name], I see we’re doing a lot of case studies. Okay, like if we’re doing the section, okay, the theory part of it, it’s just okay, we’re just understanding but, um, when we’re doing the examples, the case studies, you know, the application, we’re understanding it much more better (Kiara)
Okay, the students’ interaction with the lecturers are different because, okay, like I don’t want to be biased but I have to…okay, like [lecturer’s name]… Ja, I think his lecture
style, okay, the way he teaches whatever…he…it…he also entertains. He entertains while teaching so it’s…so people enjoy that. They’re not like, um, bored…… And amongst…in all of that, you’re still learning. Still getting through the syllabus. Ja. So that’s the main thing that I enjoy……even though there’s no case studies, there’s no application, people are speaking. People are not shy to…even though there’s so many people there. They’re not shy to say something or……they don’t…you know, feel intimidated that, you know, maybe they’re wrong… (Kiara)
…only when it comes to group [work]…then they’re bold to speak and then if their points are, you know, if they raise a point and they feel that it’s good enough, then they have the confidence to now say “Our group said this”. So they build on that I think. Ja, that’s what I think... I think it’s the understanding, you know, like light bulb moment.
Like they realize now…okay…they didn’t expect to like give an answer like that and everyone is like agreeing with them. Okay. They’re just scared, they say “I got this answer”, and everyone agrees. They’re surprised that everyone agrees. Then that builds their confidence. That, you know, they’re saying something that’s meaningful……that’s adding some meaning here. And, ja, that’s what builds their confidence, you know, to even give you an example, because I notice, like personalities, okay, in the class, they grow… Like sometimes they’re quiet and once they start getting group consensus – they get good remarks and whatever - ……it increases. Like for example, like if the lecturer says “Well done”, it, er, it motivates them. Um, I noted that (Kiara).
In addition to discourses around the relevance of the curriculum and teaching practices, discourses around curriculum structure were also evident.89