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T he year 2020, for many, represented a tipping point in terms of education technology and was the year Business School leaders moved into uncharted territory and a future that has taken business education into a new phase from which it may never return. The AMBA & BGA Education Technology Research report, in association with Barco, polled 216 global Business School leaders to determine their experiences of adopting new technology, potential barriers, and their prognoses for the future. Here, the report’s findings are summarised in a format designed to assist those preparing for the next stage of their institution’s digital journey. To access the full report, please Almost all Business School leaders surveyed (91%) said that their institutions have increased the amount of digital or online learning opportunities in the past year. Online course delivery, meanwhile, shot up from 8% of all courses on offer at participants’ Business Schools pre-Covid-19, to 68% during the pandemic. Encouragingly, 98% of respondents believe that their School was either ‘very successful’ or ‘fairly successful’ in taking programmes online due to Covid-19; and 88% believe the effectiveness of digital teaching on the MBA programmes at their visit: http://www.associationofmbas.com/research . What are the key lessons learnt from taking full-time MBA courses online? Schools has been ‘very effective’ or ‘somewhat effective’. All the Business School leaders surveyed had either already assigned budget to further tech enhancement or were considering this for the future – highlighting the need for further development as well as their ambition for ongoing innovation in delivery. However, there was less agreement on how they thought online teaching compared to traditional classroom teaching. While 52% think online teaching methods are ‘the same’ or ‘somewhat better’ to the traditional classroom format of teaching, 48% felt the online format was ‘somewhat worse’. Many believe that blended and hybrid models will replace the traditional classroom-based delivery of courses in the
of online teaching; 71% value the fact that they could record sessions; 71% value the reduction in travel time for staff; and 70% named international collaboration as a big advantage. However, it seems that class sizes might need to be reduced to maximise online teaching success. When participants were asked: ‘What size of class does your School’s online teaching work best with?’, the mean answer was 37. Yet, the mean number of students in an MBA cohort among Schools that participated in this research is 265. What other problems and challenges are associated with teaching online? Transforming courses to fit an online format has caused a problem for 73% of responding Business School leaders. Other problems frequently cited include gaining feedback from students on their understanding (cited by 52%). When asked to put forward other problems experienced, answers from participants focused on difficulties in maintaining student engagement and interaction. Respondents were also asked to share the top three challenges their faculty members had reported in switching to online modes of teaching. Here, the most popular answers were: lack of interaction (cited by 71%); lack of eye contact with students (cited by 57%); and the faculty’s lack of familiarity with the technology behind online learning solutions (cited by 50%).
Participants were also asked to rate the effectiveness of technology in delivering Business School initiatives
outside core areas of teaching. Here, satisfaction scores were
28
years ahead and, in line with this thinking, digitalisation is deemed to be the most important concept in the running of a Business School over the next decade – 63% of leaders polled believe it to be ‘very important’. A significant 83% of leaders, meanwhile, think it is either ‘very likely’ or ‘fairly likely’ that the fundamentals of the MBA will change in the next 10 years, compared with 76% who were of this opinion in late 2019, pre-Covid-19. The overarching takeaway here is that
things will never be the same as they were before the pandemic. A new era has arrived almost overnight. What’s worked well and what hasn’t? Less travel for students, cited by 76% of participants, was the most popular advantage
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