EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF LONGITUDINAL INTERVENTION ON THE AWARENESS OF SELF-DIRECTED CHANGE ON MANAGERIAL ABILITIES.

Abstract

In a traditional education program, students often receive feedback on their learning through grades. However, grades are not good indicators of measuring improvement on abilities or skills. Although prior research on outcome assessment on ability development have documented students' improvement, it is not clear whether students themselves are aware of their own change. The current research focuses on students' awareness of self-directed change at a professional management school. Based on prior research that showed increased self-awareness helped reduce the gap between self-reported instruments and actual behavior, a selected group of students were given repeated opportunities to reflect about their self-directed change process during the program. At the end of the program, both the selected and the comparison groups were put through the identical ability assessment process which included interviews, questionnaires, and other self-reported instruments. The results of the study showed that the study group demonstrated greater awareness of their own change than the comparison group despite a greater degree of behavioral demonstration shown by the comparison group. What was even more surprising was the extreme low level of awareness of change shown by the comparison group. Several different explanations for this discrepancy are offered as well as the implications for management education and educators are discussed.