A Study of Problem-based Learning using Practical-based Approach
in Management Education
Te-Tsai Lu
Department of Business Administration, Kun Shan University, Tainan, Taiwan
Keywords: Industrial Practice Case, 5P Practice Method, Practical-based Approach, Management Education.
Abstract: This study aimed to integrate the Babson entrepreneurial 5P practice method of practical-based approach,
which is applied to the teaching courses when guiding students to solve industrial problems. The results
showed that through the game-based enlightenment activities, students’ willingness to participate in
interaction can be improved; the students have made significant progress in the industrial environment and
the interaction between the organization itself and other elements; before and after the experiment that the
students thought they had more opinions than others after learning, but did not think that these ideas were
very different from others; students feel the importance of the team and the self reflection; and students feel
that they are more able to reflect on the interaction with others and their emotional reactions after class.
1 INTRODUCTION
This study integrates the Babson entrepreneurial 5P
practice method of practical-based approach, which
is applied to the teaching courses when guiding
students to solve industrial problems. The master
program of business administration of Babson’s was
ranked number one in the entrepreneurship category
by U.S. News & World Report. Babson College had
won this award for 24 years (1994-2018). In the past
few years, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan and
universities had sent personnel and teachers to the
Babson College for short-term study, and introduced
to this education method. However, until now,
neither relevant teaching research report has been
published nor the teaching courses on the “problem-
oriented learning method” of “industry problem
analysis and resolution” have been reported. he
author of the present study had completed the course
in 2015 and introduced it into the innovation and
entrepreneurship course. Therefore, firstly, the
Babson entrepreneurial 5P practice method of
practical-based approach was applied into “problem
analysis and resolution” course. The method was
also incorporated to develop more systematic
structure for relative courses
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
The present study is a teaching practice research,
mainly based on Neck et al. (2014), which proposes
5P practice method of practical-based approach of
entrepreneurship education (Fig. 1), and points out
that the purpose of entrepreneurship teaching is
practice.
The following (Figure 1) is a brief description of
the 5 practices of entrepreneurship education:
Practiceof
Pla
y

Practiceof
Em
p
ath
y

Practiceof
Creation
Practiceof
Experimentation
Practiceof
Reflection
Figure 1: 5P of Babson Model (Neck et al., 2014).
Lu, T.
A Study of Problem-based Learning using Practical-based Approach in Management Education.
DOI: 10.5220/0008490501970202
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM Untar 2018), pages 197-202
ISBN: 978-989-758-363-6
Copyright
c
 2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
197

 Practice of play: in terms of entrepreneurship
education, play and game are different concepts.
Play is voluntary, and this voluntary activity also
derives the questions of how to utilize it for
teaching practice. Play practice is a fun,
engaging, challenging, and enjoyable experience
for learning entrepreneurial management
methods through games, promoting
entrepreneurial management, and encouraging
students to think and act in a classroom.
 Practice of empathy: to be successful,
entrepreneurs must understand users, be user-
centric and user-oriented. Therefore, students
must develop their skills to feel and understand
the users, and be able to act on this experience in
order to be able to connect with actual
entrepreneurial initiatives and continue to
provide the ideal product or service.
 Practice of creation: to achieve any forms of
entrepreneurship, most scholars agreed that
creating a product or service of new value is the
core direction. The process of creation requires
some kind of entrepreneurial action to create new
products, new processes, new markets, and new
logistics. Furthermore, it develops personal
initiative and enthusiasm. Thus, the students’
creative ability plays a vital role in creative
practice. Therefore, in entrepreneurship
management, creative practice is a central role. A
major cause is the core of entrepreneurship is to
introduce or create a new product, new service,
new market, new organization, or new
production and supply chain (Schumpeter, 1934).
 Practice of experimentation: entrepreneurship is
an experimental process, trying certain things,
seeing what is the outcome, learning from the
results, and then trying again. The experimental
practice in entrepreneurship is to “get the
knowledge related to entrepreneurship” and learn
from it by actively experimenting with the
project (Curran and Stanworth, 1989; Alberti et
al., 2004).
 Practice of reflection: entrepreneurship teaching
is a practical method. Beyond understanding,
focus on specific matters, that is, practice of play,
empathy, creativity, experiment, and reflection.
Reflection is considered one of the most
important innovations in education (Procee,
2006). But the practice of reflection is usually
not taken seriously in entrepreneurship education.
Because reflection is one of the most difficult
projects for students to practice. In
entrepreneurship management education, we
must try to impart such thinking and skills so that
students can use it in any situation in life. Taking
the time to think about everything is the key to
entrepreneurship education – it is balanced with
all things (Doing) and must not be neglected.
2.1 Problem-based Learning
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student centered
pedagogy in which students learn about a subject
through the experience of solving an open-ended
problem found in trigger material. Wood (2003)
defines problem-based learning as a process that
uses identified issues within a scenario to increase
knowledge and understanding. Wood (2003) also
indicated that in problem based learning students use
“triggers” from the problem case or scenario to
define their learning objectives. Subsequently they
do independent, self directed study before returning
to the group to discuss and refine their acquired
knowledge. Thus, problem based learning is not
about problem solving per se, but rather about using
appropriate problems to increase knowledge and
understanding. Therefore, problem based learning
focuses on the tutorial and learning process rather
than problem solving with a defined solution. The
problem BL process was pioneered by Barrows and
Tamblyn (1980) at the medical school program at
McMaster University in Hamilton.
The process is clearly defined, and the several
variations that exist all follow a similar series of
steps as follows.
 Step 1- Identify and clarify unfamiliar terms
presented in the scenario; scribe lists those that
remain unexplained after discussion.
 Step 2- Define the problem(s) to be discussed;
students may have different views on the issues,
but all should be considered; scribe records a list
of agreed problems.
 Step 3- “Brainstorming” session to discuss the
problem(s), suggesting possible explanations on
the basis of prior knowledge; students draw on
each other's knowledge and identify areas of
incomplete knowledge; scribe records all
discussion.
 Step 4- Review steps 2 and 3 and arrange
explanations into tentative solutions; scribe
organizes the explanations and restructures if
necessary.
 Step 5- Formulate learning objectives; group
reaches consensus on the learning objectives;
tutor ensures learning objectives are focused,
achievable, comprehensive, and appropriate.
 Step 6- Private study (all students gather
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information related to each learning objective).
 Step 7- Group shares results of private study
(students identify their learning resources and
share their results); tutor checks learning and
may assess the group.
The advantages of problem-based learning can be
summarized as follows: (1). Arouse students’
motivation for learning: students have a sense of
sensation and sense of accomplishment from
activities; (2). Develop high-level thinking ability:
students can stimulate students’ criticism through
discussion of lack of structure and the ability to
create thinking; (3). Strengthen the cognitive ability
of students: students learn from the process of
defining problems, collecting information, analyzing
data, establishing hypotheses, and comparing
different solutions, can encourage students to
constantly reflect on learning ability; (4). Real
situation use: the ability to learn from learning
activities contributes to the application of the actual
situation.
2.2 Teaching Practice Tools
In 2015, the author of this study completed training
based on the framework and teaching materials, and
strengthened some textbooks according to the
Taiwanese teaching environment. The tools are
described as follows and summarized in Table 1.
 Practice of play: through a variety of game-style
thinking training, it is impossible to train with
“paper-cutting” and “iron nails” first, and then
used the training of cotton candy tower in Neck
et al. (2014) textbook.
 Practice of empathy: using the empathy map
Osterwalder et al. (2010) and the AEIOU method
Robinson (1991), observe the problems raised by
the industry in the actual field.
 Practice of creative: using the idea-space creative
space map developed by Neck et al. (2014), and
then creating ideas and creative solutions to the
problem in this study.
 Practice of experimental: through three-stage
resource assumptions (Neck et al., 2014),
students are asked to develop three different
solutions and construct the concept. For example,
500 yuan, 5,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan.
 Practice of reflective: at each of the above stages,
the structure of the “reflexive exercise” (Neck et
al., 2014) is directly applied after the completion
of the course.
Table 1: Teaching practice tools in this study.
Theme Practice steps Tools
Problem
analysis and
resolution
Practice of play
Nail and paper-cut/puzzle and
p
atchwo
r
k/cotton candy towe
r
Practice of empathy AEIOU and empathy map
Practice of creation Idea-space creative space map
Practice of
experimentation
Three stage resource
assumptions
Practice of
r
eflection
2.3 Assessment Questionnaire
According to the above five teaching practice
methods, the assessment questionnaire of this
research have been developed.
 Practice of play: through a variety of game play.
The purpose is to inspire students’ participation
intensity. Do not participate in the design of this
course with too strict constraints, so that the
student is willing to engage in discussion and
participation with OPEN MIND with classmates
or teachers. Therefore, this study proposes the
following 7 questions (Table 2) of assessment of
play practice.
Table 2: Assessment of practice of play.
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Post-test
1-1 Discuss with classmates. 4.11 4.15 0.83
1-2 Discuss with the teache
r
. 3.81 4.04 0.16
1-3 Make you
r
own comments. 4.04 4.11 0.54
1-4
Listen to the opinions of
classmates.
4.07 4.37 0.03
*
1-5
Listen to the teacher’s
opinion.
4.11 4.37 0.09
1-6
The environment in which
the actual contact problem
occurs.
3.96 4.15 0.35
1-7
Events that actually
p
articipate in the issue.
4.00 4.04 0.77
 Practice of empathy: its purpose is to expect
students to stand in the position of the consumer
to observe and understand the elements of the
surrounding environment, and to participate and
interaction with the attentive, so this study
proposes the following 7 questions (Table 3) of
assessment of empathy practice.
Table 3: Assessment of practice of empathy.
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Pos
t
-tes
t
2-1
Related activities and
processes.
3.67 4.04 0.03
*
2-2 The effec
t
of space. 3.67 3.70 0.80
2-3
The role of industrial
environ
m
ental factors.
3.63 3.96 0.02
*
2-4
The role of organizational
factors.
3.44 4.00 0.00***
A Study of Problem-based Learning using Practical-based Approach in Management Education
199

Table 3: Assessment of practice of empathy. (cont.)
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Pos
t
-tes
t
2-5
Interaction of people with
other elements.
3.59 4.11 0.00
***
2-6
Related use of articles or
facilities.
3.67 3.89 0.23
2-7 Related participants. 3.78 3.78 1.00
 Practice of creative: the purpose is to expect
students to come up with more specific ideas and
to be willing to ask different answers under
various assumptions. Therefore, this study
proposes the following 5 questions (Table 4) of
assessment of creative practice.
Table 4: Assessment of practice of creative.
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Pos
t
-tes
t
3-1
I have different ideas from
others.
3.52 3.81 0.06
3-2
I have more ideas than
others.
3.48 3.52 0.80
3-3 I have a strange idea. 3.56 3.41 0.40
3-4
I have the idea of changing
my hypothesis.
3.52 3.56 0.85
3-5 I have professional idea. 3.59 3.30 0.04
*
 Practice of experimental: the purpose is to expect
students to be willing to practice and experiment,
and conduct an analysis and review based on the
actual data. Therefore, this study proposes the
following 5 questions (Table 5) of assessment of
experimental practice.
Table 5: Assessment of practice of experimental.
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Pos
t
-tes
t
4-1 I have a try to trial sale. 3.33 3.22 0.66
4-2
I have collected actual
data.
3.63 3.78 0.44
4-3
I have analyzed actual
data.
3.56 3.74 0.35
4-4
The gap between my
thoughts and the actual
situation is approaching.
3.52 3.67 0.36
4-5
I regard the teamwork is
important.
4.11 4.19 0.65
 Practice of reflective: the purpose is to expect
students to reflect and review at any time during
the above four stages. Therefore, this study
proposes the following 9 questions (Table 6) of
assessment of reflective practice.
Table 6: Assessment of practice of reflective.
No. Questions
Mean
p-value
Pre-test Pos
t
-tes
t
5-1 I have written diary 3.11 2.70 0.09
reflective every day.
5-2
I have written diary note
every day.
3.22 3.11 0.64
5-3
I have reviewed the
emotion reaction during
the process.
3.63 3.81 0.33
5-4
I have reviewed the
interaction with others
during the process.
3.85 4.00 0.33
5-5
I have reviewed the
collected information
during the process.
3.70 4.11 0.02
*
5-6
I have reviewed the
analysis results of the
information during the
process.
3.85 3.89 0.82
5-7
I have reviewed the
analysis method during the
process.
3.81 4.00 0.31
5-8
I have reviewed the criteria
of making decision during
the process.
3.74 4.00 0.15
5-9
I have reviewed the
method of making decision
during the process.
3.59 4.00 0.02
*
3 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
The subject of this research is third-grade students of
the Department of Business Administration. The
course is conducted in the compulsory course “SME
Management Practice”. The cooperative enterprise is
a local specialty food industry in Tainan. It has been
established for almost 10 years and has a central
factory that distributes its products to more than ten
stores across Taiwan.
At the beginning of the course, students are
scheduled to visit the cooperative company to learn
about the company’s development history, existing
product lines, product processes, stores and access,
and current business conditions. Next, the director of
the marketing and planning department explains the
situation, advantages and disadvantages of the
festival marketing plan launched in the past three
years. Then the director proposes the subject for
problem analysis and resolution, and presents the
problem situation that needs to be solved. The
problem raised by the company is: How to plan
more publicity and marketing plan for company’s
festival under the fixed cost budget.
Figure 2 shows the teaching practice execution
structure.
The course consisted of 35 students, and the
students were divided into 7 teams (each team has 5
students), they jointly proposed solutions to the
same problem of the same company. The students all
had completed the basic management courses
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(operation, marketing, financial, human resource,
R&D, accounting, economics, and statistics).
Industryproblemanalysisandsolutions
Post‐test
5Ppractical‐basedapproach
Industrysituation’sdescriptionandobservation
Pre‐test
Industryproblemanalysisandsolutions
Solutionsreview
Figure 2: Teaching Practice Execution Structure.
The 7 groups of students had three weeks to
collect and analyze data, discuss and think about it,
and submitted the organization’s proposed solution
in the fourth week. The pre-test questionnaire was
performed at this time.
Next, the program proceeded to the 5P practice
teaching for 4 weeks. It took 3 hours a week, and
after each practice method, students were
encouraged to use the practice teaching before the
end of the course. Three weeks after the practice of
the 5P teaching method, students were required to
propose a feasible plan for the company’s festival
marketing. Before the discussion of the feasible plan,
the post-test questionnaire was administered.
4 DATA ANALYSIS
This study used experimental methods to understand
the significant differences in learning outcomes
between students before and after receiving the 5P
practice approach. Therefore, this study is utilized
the 33 questions designed in this study that
incorporated the Likert 5-scale question items. The
questionnaires were tested one by one in paired
samples. The number of students participating in the
class was 35. After excluding students who did not
fully participate in the four-week practice method, a
total of 27 pairs of samples were obtained. The
results of the 33 questions for the 5P teaching
practice in this study are as follows:
Table 2 shows the mean of pre-test and post-test ,
and p-value of t-test for the play practice. The
experimental results show that through the game
based enlightenment activities, students’ willingness
to participate in interaction can be improved. There
is no difference between listening to the teacher’s
opinion. Through game-based activities, delegates
can bring a sense of distance between teachers and
students. However, there is no significant difference
between the students and the students before and
after the discussion. Though the most items didn’t
reach statistical significance level, but this activity
increasing the students to listen and accept the
opinions of the other students.
According to the results of the verification
(Table 3), after the AEIOU observation exercise,
students have made significant progress in the
industrial environment and the interaction between
the organization itself and people and other elements.
However, the definition of nouns in some items may
be too abstract (such as space) and overlap with
other items, resulting in no significant differences.
In the practice of jumping off the frame (Table 4),
this study used the Jiugongge (3 by 3 metrix)
divergence method to conduct experiments. The
results showed before and after the experiment that
the students thought they had more opinions than
others after learning, but did not think that these
ideas were very different from others. Even after a
group discussion, they felt that the idea was not
peculiar enough and not professional enough. This is
in contrast to the above questions, that is, students
are willing to try but have no confidence in their
own ideas and dare not strongly recommend their
own ideas.
At this experiment stage (Table 5), because of
the industrial problems, the actual trial sales were
not carried out, so the results before and after the test
were not all reach statistical significance level. This
part is the gap between the question and the teaching
process at the beginning of the design, and it is the
part that should be improved in the future. Besides,
students think they have a big gap between their
ideas and the actual situations. This is because their
creative ideas, through the experimental team’s
discussion, found that the feasibility is not enough in
practice. However, it is a major gain to feel the
importance of the team and do the self reflection.
In terms of reflection practice (Table 6), students
feel that they are able to review the collected
information and the method of making decision
during the process. Other questions do not reach
statistical significance because they do not reflect on
the criteria and methods of collecting and analyzing
information, and analyzing the actual practice of
teaching practice. This improvement might be made
in the future.
A Study of Problem-based Learning using Practical-based Approach in Management Education
201

5 CONCLUSION
This study conducted Babson’s entrepreneurial
practice teaching framework to apply the 5 practical
applications of teaching tools to the analysis and
resolution of industrial problems, and to observe
whether students’ results oriented learning methods
can produce better results. The results of the self
learning assessment before and after the
experimental method are shown.
After adopting the teaching method of this
structure, this teaching method is not used. Some of
the 5 practical teaching tools have achieved
significant and good results. Including the play
practice stage to enhance students' willingness to
participate, the empathy practice can enhance
students’ interaction with the industrial environment
and the organization itself, people, and other
elements. The creative practice teaching method,
although letting students to think that they have
more opinions than others after learning, do not
think that these ideas are very different from others.
That is to say, students are willing to try a lot, but
they are not confident in their own ideas and dare
not to express their own ideas. In the teaching of
reflection practice, students are more able to reflect
on the interaction with others and their emotional
reactions in the process. It also began to review the
results of the information analysis during the process.
Therefore, the teaching methods of the 5P practical
of entrepreneurial practice teaching framework have
achieved remarkable results.
This study is the first to apply the 5P practical
teaching method to the analysis and resolution of
industrial problems. It is might not mature enough in
the operation of teaching, and some teaching tools
appear to have a gap with the problems to be solved
by the industry. Thus, it lacks degree of relevance
with the learning outcomes. Thus, the significance of
the pre-test and post-test was not shown while it
underwent statistical analysis. Therefore, the
direction of future research improvement is to
strengthen the connection between teaching tools
and industrial problems.
According to this connection degree, the
question of 5P practical teaching method is corrected.
It allows students to answer more questions in the
context of the learning process.
Furthermore, the assessment method of this
study has not been evaluated for results due to time
constraints. In the future, solutions for students can
be evaluated by industry and instructors. In addition,
it can be observed whether there is a significant
correlation between the teaching practice methods of
each group. By doing so, it is expected to be able to
confirm the analysis and solution of industrial
problems better, and to have a more objective basis
for comparison.
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