Teaching in a contextual vacuum: lack of prior workplace knowledge as a barrier to sensemaking in the learning and teaching of business courses

Abstract

Few students in pursuit of baccalaureate business degrees seem to have spent significant time in organisations of the kind studied and discussed in the courses that typify such degrees. This paper questions the extent to which the students’ lack of business exposure is perceived by teachers as a barrier to effective learning and teaching. It suggests that learning and teaching would be enhanced for all stakeholders if students experienced the real‐life complexities of actual organisations either before, or in the early part, of their degree programmes. This would serve the dual purpose of allowing the students to better comprehend the taught content as it relates to real life, while continuing to enhance their eventual employability in the same way that many existing placement schemes aim to do.

Keywords:

• critical pedagogy
• situated cognition
• sensemaking
• work‐based learning