Residential Fieldtrips Adding Value to Marketing Education and Student Experiences Essay

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.

Results and Findings

Below is a discussion of results of a trip in which a group of 32 students from Marketing Course visited Edinburgh on a residential field trip. All the 32 students reflected their experiences in the light of following research questions.

1. What practical/real life insights (if any) did you gain from the residential?

2. How do you feel the residential experience has impact on:

a. Your relationships and interaction with fellow students?

b. Your relationships and interaction with members of faculty?

3. What were your expectations before you came to the residential? Do you think they have been met?

4. How do you envisage using (if at all) this experience and practitioner marketing knowledge when you return the classroom

5. If you were given responsibility for organizing the residential event, what would you do differently and how?

During this trip the students attended following seminars and workshops:

1) Marketing Edinburgh and the Edinburgh brand by Lucy Bird, CEO Marketing Edinburgh.

2) Marketing the Scottish Story Telling Centre by Lindsay Carr, Marketing officer at the centre.

3) Marketing Mercat Ghost Tour by, Kathleen Brogan, Marketing Manager.

4) Marketing Scotland for Events by Leon Thomson, Corporate Affair Manager.

5) Marketing the royal yacht Britannia by Lucy Caldwar, Marketing Manager.

6) Marketing Edinburgh Zoo by Sharon Simpson, Marketing Manager.

7) Marketing the Royal Botanical Garden by Alan Bennell, Head of communication and visitor Services.

Almost all the students expressed satisfactory comments about the seminars and workshops. Stating the benefits of field trip Dhawal Chandra said:

"These all were the total seminars that we had attended during our Residential Trip from all these different seminars we gain lots of practical knowledge and real life insights all the seminars was really interesting and very well managed all the speakers was really intellectual we came to know various new marketing strategies to promote the brand, how various companies work in extremely competitive environment and how they are tackling those threats to gain the bigger share in market"

Another student Hebah Kamal Jamal also expressed similar views;

"I gain many things from this residential trip. First of all, it was a…