Promoting Problem-Based Learning in Retailing and Services Marketing Course Curricula With Reality Television

Abstract

This research provides business educators who teach retailing and services courses with an innovative way to encourage students to engage in problem-based learning solving by incorporating reality television into their curricula. The authors explore the reality television genre from several theoretical perspectives to lend support to the conclusion that reality programs easily captivate their audiences by stimulating self-involvement. The authors present an assignment based on B. S. Bloom's (1956) revised taxonomy that educators can employ when incorporating reality programming into their courses. They then provide data to demonstrate direct and indirect measures of learning outcomes associated with reality programming in business curricula.

Keywords:

• creative problem solving
• problem-based learning
• reality television
• retail curriculum
• services marketing curriculum