Complex Business Problem. After consulting with two other international business lecturers, the first author created a complex business problem based on a current

event. The problem was about the current Dutch retail crisis. It included two short articles and a table of information about the Dutch retail industry translated from recent publications of the Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad. The articles were entitled, ‘The perilous middle:

Why many Dutch retail chains don’t make it’ and, ‘Not just V&D: Many stores are doing worse than ever’. The table included figures about successful foreign and unsuccessful Dutch retail chains operating in the Netherlands. Students were prompted to explain important factors, required knowledge, and the dilemmas faced by the retail chains struggling to survive. Students were prompted to write from the perspective of a newly appointed Chief Executive Officer to the Board of ‘a medium-sized Dutch retail chain’ that had been trading for over 50 years.

Exploring Differences Between International Business Undergraduates’ Conceptual Understanding

The business problem was expected to reveal differences in conceptual understanding between students adequately because all students were expected to be familiar with this topic.

The ongoing bankruptcies of Dutch retail companies had been widely discussed in news media and lectures, and encountered by students in their everyday lives when shopping. The reality of the topic, the significance of the topic for international business and the personal experience of the topic made the problem real, relevant and meaningful for students, which was expected to stimulate engagement (Brown et al., 2014; Gulikers et al., 2008). The problem was also considered suitable for revealing conceptual understanding because its complexity required students to describe, explain and explore perspectives, and to apply and construct different types of knowledge (Alonso-Tapia, 2002).

6.4.3.2 Essay Method. The communication method chosen to reveal conceptual understanding of international business was essays. Essays are a suitable approach for revealing conceptual understanding of international business because they are a detailed communication approach that emphasises reasoning (Flower & Hayes, 1981). To reveal conceptual understanding, a complex communication approach that emphasises reasoning is required (Allen & Tanner, 2006; Kellogg & Whiteford, 2009). As presented in Chapter 3, we concluded in our second study involving 132 international business undergraduates, on essays, concept maps and combinations of the two, that essays are a suitable approach for revealing conceptual understanding of international business because they have the potential to differentiate between negligible, weak, moderate, strong and extraordinary conceptual understanding.

6.4.3.3 Rubric. Rubrics are proven tools for assessing complex learning outcomes like conceptual understanding (Allen & Tanner, 2006; Reddy & Andrade, 2010). Therefore, a rubric was used to score conceptual understanding of international business in the essays.

To score the extent of conceptual understanding for the six components we identified for international business (Figure 6.1), the rubric describes five possible degrees of conceptual understanding encapsulating conceptual understanding development. The degrees represent weak to moderate conceptual understanding, typified by the reproduction of isolated facts and concepts (White, 2007); strong conceptual understanding, typified by reflection and explanation (Sparks-Langer et al., 1990); and extraordinary conceptual understanding, typified by out-of-the-box thinking (Andrews & Higson, 2008) (Table 6.1).

Table 6.1

Extent of International Business Conceptual Understanding

Degrees Description Example

Negligible Omits or trivialises Uses the words trade and exports

Weak Lists relevant facts Implies that global trade conditions are important for a company’s export growth

Moderate Defines essential elements Describes effects of global trade conditions on a company’s export growth

Strong Supports claims with logical reasoning

Uses evidence to explain how global trade conditions are affecting a company’s export growth

Extraordinary Explores alternative viewpoints

Examines various scenarios for stimulating export growth for current global trade conditions

The rubric was developed and validated in the first two studies, as presented in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Inter-rater reliability was established in the second study, as presented in Chapter 3, where the first author and a research assistant judged similar writing. For the six components of conceptual understanding, scores of conceptual understanding in 12 essays (72 values) using the rubric had shown good agreement, κw = .67 (p < .001), 95% CI (.55, .79).

6.4.4 Procedure

Data collection took place in a range of first, second, third and fourth-year classes halfway through the second semester of 2014-2015. With permission from lecturers and students, who both viewed participation in this study as a worthwhile and meaningful curricular activity, the first author presented students in each class with a three-page handout about the current Dutch retail crisis, which contained facts and statistics about the financial health of various Dutch and foreign retail chains in the Netherlands. The first author spent 10 min explaining the business problem and giving instructions on writing essays about the problem. Under supervision of the first author, students used school computers to explain how they would advise management on the business problem presented. To assist with their writing, students could use proofing and language tools on the computer. They could refer to the handout, but could not use reference books or the internet. Students had one hour to write their essays.

They then emailed their essays to the first author. The first author randomly numbered the essays to anonymise authorship.

Exploring Differences Between International Business Undergraduates’ Conceptual Understanding

With input from the second and third authors to ensure analytical quality, the first author used the rubric to score six components of conceptual understanding in each essay.

Each component of conceptual understanding was scored 1 (negligible), 2 (weak), 3 (moderate), 4 (strong) or 5 (extraordinary), depending on relevance for international business, and depending on the extent to which the component had been detailed, described, explained and discussed. Excerpts from students’ writing containing details, descriptions, explanations and discussions illustrating conceptual understanding of international business were cut and pasted from the essays for further analysis.

6.4.5 Data Analysis

To determine different types of conceptual understanding between undergraduates, essay scores were analysed in two steps. These steps involved latent class analysis (LCA) and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).

LCA is a statistical technique that is useful for placing individuals in homogenous groups based on observable variables (Porcu & Giambona, 2017). LCA was used to identify discrete types of conceptual understanding based on students’ essay scores for the six components of conceptual understanding. One-way ANOVA were used to investigate significant differences between component scores for each type. Since ANOVA assumes homogeneity of variance within groups, Levene’s test of equality was used to check this.

Where Levene’s test proved statistically significant, meaning that homogeneity of variance could not be assumed, Games-Howell post hoc procedures were used because they consider unequal group variances. Otherwise, the Bonferroni correction was used to reduce statistical error from multiple tests.

The relationship between different types of conceptual understanding and study progress was identified in quantitative and qualitative ways. Firstly, we used one-way ANOVA tests in the manner described above to show significant differences between each type of conceptual understanding regarding how many first year and main phase credits students had achieved. Secondly, we chose excerpts from two essays written by students in different stages of the curriculum, whose component scores most closely matched the average

component scores of each type of conceptual understanding. Pseudonyms were used to protect the students’ identities.

6.5 Results

Quantitative analyses were used to identify differences between undergraduates with regard to types of conceptual understanding. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to identify how these types related to study progress.