Residential fieldtrips and their impact on marketing student learning and relationships

Residential Fieldtrips: Adding Value to Marketing Education and Student Experiences

Fieldtrips are important non-formal way of teaching and learning different fields. Marketing courses are important as today businesses are growing and exploring international markets. At present marketing is not just limited to advertisements in local newspapers and television channel instead different aspects of marketing and different sources like internet, social media marketing and word of mouth have emerged. Experiential learning is useful for many fields including marketing. Present paper is a discussion on the benefits of residential field trips for marketing students. The paper is based on the experiences and views of the 32 marketing students from studying in the marketing course at Middlesex University in UK who visited Edinberg, Scotland and attended many seminars and workshop there on marketing. The results of the study reflect that field trip was beneficial for students not only in understanding the marketing concepts but also improving their relationship with other students as well as faculty members.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Residential fieldtrips: adding Value to marketing education and student experiences 4

Introduction 4

Purpose of the research 4

Literature Review 5

Residential Education 5

Methodology 7

Results and Findings 7

Practical/real life insights (if any) that the student gained 9

The impact of residential experience on relationships and interaction with fellow students and members of faculty? 10

Expectations and experiences from the trip 10

How will I apply these practical learning and knowledge in class ? 11

What would I have done differently in organizing a residential event? 11

References 13

Residential fieldtrips: adding Value to marketing education and student experiences

Introduction

The educational system in the UK has been described as being in an "age of accountability," which has had implications that have influenced most areas of education. Standards-based education has been one of the changes. This situation may be forcing many non-formal education providers to change the way that they conduct program evaluations.

Purpose of the research

In the 21st century society will not continue to evolve and keep up with the ever-changing planet without an innovative and successful system of higher education (Marchese, 1997). It is incumbent upon colleges and universities to serve society by creating the best possible education for the leaders of tomorrow. For all the intricacies of higher education, none of them matter without the two elements that must be present: students and faculty. Without the success of both of these stakeholder segments, nothing else in higher education really matters. According to Hersh (1999), one way that many colleges and universities are working to create a mutually successful environment for students and faculty is the creation or reemergence of residential colleges.

Purpose of the research was to know whether residential fieldtrips are valuable or useful for students studying marketing and what is the impact of these trips on their relationships with fellow students and faculty members.

Literature Review

Residential Education

There is a long history of the residential college system as an important aspect of higher education in America and abroad. The first reported intentional residential college was founded at Merton College of Oxford University in 1264 (Ryan, 1992), over 700 years ago. The buildings of Merton were grouped around a chapel, which was a cornerstone of much of higher education at the time. The residential college was designed to move beyond the normal boundaries of teaching and education of the university and focus on the many aspects of being an educated person. Faculty lived with the students and helped shape them in terms of sobriety, chastity, and worship (Ryan, 1992). In other words, this was the beginning of the movement to educate a student as a whole person and not just as a teacher, clergy, or whatever field of vocation was being sought. It was also clear at this time in history that the "whole person" was intended to mean the spiritual and moral character naturally associated with Christian religion. The second residential college at Oxford did not follow until 1379, but it did become the first teachers college where students were taught not only to be teachers of children, but were also taught and groomed to become part of the residential college system, thus offering greater sustainability of the ideal.

Residential Education Centers are one part of an array of sources of education. These sources include formal education and non-formal education sources. Some organizations label learning that occurs outside of the school as informal learning, though for this study these sources of learning will be called non-formal learning. Sources of education for children include television, school, families, newspapers, magazines, radio, friends, and the internet (Coyle, 2005). The National Research Council (1996) lists several areas influential in education including the media, museums, businesses, and community organizations in the schools across the United States are inconsistent.

Non-formal learning is defined as learning that takes place outside the formal structure of the classroom and includes a wide range of learning opportunities from clubs and organizations to museums and science centers (Norland, 2005). Attention is being focused in this area as individuals and groups seek to understand the way we learn science in non-formal learning environments.

Many leaders in the field of non-formal education have sought to identify a useful framework for research in this area of education and suggest research techniques or directions that would be especially beneficial to the research community (Anderson, Lucas, & Ginns, 2003; Dierking et al., 2003; Rennie & Johnston, 2004). Anderson et al. suggests that the physical setting of non-formal science is an important aspect of this type of learning. Therefore, research incorporating the learning setting is important. Investigations conducted within the setting of the non-formal science learning should be able to shed light on the important interaction of the learner with the learning setting. Anderson et al. further suggests that researchers use multiple creative methods for assessing learning in these non-formal environments (Anderson, at al., 2003). The cumulative nature and social nature of learning is also stressed (Dierking et al., 2003; Renie & Johnston, 2004), as well as the importance of motivation, interest, and emotion in learning.

Alexander (1998) noted that residential colleges had begun to appear on more campuses. This was in part to counteract the feeling of personal and intellectual isolation that many students face in today's colleges and universities. He hypothesized also that these feelings were more prevalent and more pronounced at larger research institutions. Alexander (1998) stated that after years of campus division between faculty and students, these communal educational structures have reemerged as a potentially effective means to improve the higher education experience of students and faculty (p. 13).

Methodology

The study was a case study and is based on the experiences and views of marketing students during the residential trip to Edinburg, Scotland. All the students were studying in the marketing course at a Middlesex University in UK.

Practical/real life insights (if any) that the student gained

Majority of the students were of the view that field trip and seminars and workshops they attended at Edinburg helped them to understand the importance of marketing, the concept of brand promotion, the significance of customer and how to get feedback and satisfy them.

"They made us understand the importance of marketing or we can say promotion of your brand, how to focus on your target audience, how to make use of particular amount of resources, how to evaluate customer feedback and satisfaction, how to tackle your competitor and various other important aspects" (Dhawal Chandra)

Another student stated "Residential trip also help me to see broader and wider picture of how marketing work and how company connected with each other from small level to bigger level such as Ghost Tour, Royal Britainia. Its help Marketing Edinburgh to promote their town, which is Marketing Edinburgh, also help to support Marketing Scotland as a whole" (Penthai Thaworn)

The impact of residential experience on relationships and interaction with fellow students and members of faculty?

On the question of relationship with students and faculty members almost all the students described that during this trip they became close to each other. Comparing the experience of residential field trips to the university class's experiences one student said: "because of this residential trip we all came really close to each other like a one big family all the classmates were really intellectual and extremely friendly in nature" (Dhawal Chandra)

Expectations and experiences from the trip

The students were of the view that they were not expecting the trip would of so much fun as well as informative. Adeyomi stated "When I was signing on for the degree I had no idea there was going to be a residential trip so it came as a huge pleasant surprise. But in my own words it was the best thing that could possibly have happened because it was very direct, very practical, and very hands-on"

Expressing similar view Sukhbinder Barn stated "Residential trip is beyond my expectation. It far better than what I'm thinking. Actually, I thinking that residential trip going to be sitting and listening and have a lot of workshop, asking question, asking to do this, to do that and those. But honestly, even we don't have workshop as much as I expect which good but we still learn a lot from that. We learn from experience that the main part of this trip. Experiences are so important when you learn by yourself. You understand by see touch feel"

How will I apply these practical learning and knowledge in class?

Students were of the view that field trips helped them to better understand the marketing theories as in seminars and workshops they were introduced with marketing strategies, customer's satisfaction and feedback brand promotion which were not clear to them previously

"As a result, I can use this experience and knowledge in several ways. I read many theories, I did lots of readings and I attended many lectures but it was vague for me to apply it in marketing or in my assignments. Everything becomes much clear now when I read any marketing research about any company and they have a problem I could notice this problem easily as well that I could suggest some ideas" (Habbah Kamal Jamal)

"The experiences which we had on the trip will definitely help me understand the lectures better. Now when we are discuss in class I try to understand it in context of what we experienced on the trip." (Sidarath)

What would I have done differently in organizing a residential event?

For majority of the students the residential trip was well organized and they were satisfied with the fund and knowledge they gained during this trip. "

"First of all no one can manage this event as it was managed by our esteem faculties it was really great hats off to them and if I get a chance or get a responsibility to organize a residential event first thing I would have done is to increase the duration and secondly I would have focused on the vegetarians a lot because they have limited options of food to eat and they cannot eat in every restaurant I would have ask them to carry some ready to eat vegetarian stuff with them or something or the other rest I cannot even think of doing it differently because the trip was excellent without any error and nothing can be done better than this." (Dhawal Chandra)