AMBA & BGA’s survey with Business School leaders reveals a picture of rapid digital innovation and hybrid learning in the wake of the pandemic, write Ellen Buchan and David Woods-Hale
n January 2021, when AMBA & BGA released the first iteration of its Education Technology Research, in association with Barco, the overarching takeaway was that things would never be the same as they were pre-Covid-19, and that a new era had arrived almost overnight.
The Business School leaders who took part in that research showed their Schools to be both pragmatic and agile in the face of the disruption caused during 2020. Initially responding to the need for the rapid adoption of new technology in the face of social distancing, they then ascertained challenges quickly and moved to address them.
But, at that time, commentators in both the edtech and business education arenas questioned whether Business Schools would continue to adapt to the impact of Covid-19, or whether they would enter a new phase of innovation – moving from crisis mode to creative strategy and the development and fine-tuning of technology provision once the availability of vaccines began to reduce the virus’ impact.
Nine months later, the AMBA & BGA Education Technology Report, in association with Barco, published its second instalment, based on a survey of 171 Business School leaders worldwide between May and July 2021.
The headline? Edtech is gaining momentum and shows no signs of slowing down.
A massive 84% of survey respondents indicated that they want their School to retain the new technology that has been introduced, and most Business School leaders believe that the pandemic has triggered major changes to their institution’s long-term strategy.
You can access the full report at www.associationofmbas.com/research, but we’ve included some of the key findings below.
The impact of Covid-19
Business School leaders were asked to share some insight into examples of how their Schools have innovated in terms of programme delivery during the past year – and considering the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than nine out of 10 (91%) indicated that their institution has increased the proportion of digital or online learning opportunities; 59% said their Business Schools’ delivery strategy has been changed to be more ‘fit for purpose’; and 57% said their School has increased its teaching capacity with regards to new technology and innovation.
Other motivations for tech innovation in Business Schools cited in the survey include the need to meet prospective students’ expectations (cited by 62% of Business School leaders), wanting to be ahead of the market (cited by 44%), and the need to prepare students for the digital workplace (cited by 44%).
What changes have Business Schools made?
Nine in 10 participants (90%) acknowledged that their School has moved faculty to teaching online, while a similar proportion (86%) believe that their Business School has been able to adopt new technology. Three quarters of participants (75%) confirmed that the pandemic has impacted students’ ability to come to campus.
To understand the ramifications of these changes, the participants were asked to rate how impactful each of the changes has been. All are seen to be impactful by at least 70% of participants, with 92% describing faculty moving to teaching online as either ‘very impactful’ or ‘fairly impactful’. A similar proportion (89%), think that being able to adopt new technology has been either ‘very impactful’ or ‘fairly impactful’.
Overall, respondents are very positive about the adoption of new technology at their Business School – 95% gave this a positive rating.
Students’ inability to come to campus elicited the largest negative response from participants,
with 41% rating this change as ‘negative’ or ‘extremely negative’.
Programmes and delivery
To provide context to the educational landscape, Business School leaders were asked about the programmes they provide, including the formats and the technology used by their Schools. Here, it is important to note that many Business Schools will still be operating outside their normal teaching practices at the time of writing, due to Covid-19 and the associated restrictions and guidelines that remain in place in many parts of the world.
The results reveal that the largest proportion of courses are being taught online at participants’ Business Schools, with 44% being taught online using videoconferencing software and 38% taught with virtual classroom software.
Hybrid learning, in which some students join classes physically while others access the same classes virtually and synchronously, is being used 27% of the time. The current proportion of courses being taught with all students on campus in a physical classroom is also 27%.
Blended learning
Blended learning, involving a mixture of online and classroom-based teaching, accounts for almost a quarter (24%) of all teaching at participants’ Business Schools. Nearly half (45%) of respondents reported that blended learning is in use in their Business Schools’ MBA programmes, while 41% said that it is not, and the remaining 14% were unsure.
Flipped classrooms
‘Flipped classroom learning’ is where traditional classroom activities are conducted online, and thinking time, which traditionally takes place away from the classroom, is conducted in the classroom.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of responding Business School leaders said that they believe a flipped classroom model is suitable for MBA programmes, with 33% declaring it to be
‘very suitable’.
When asked how often their Business School conducted flipped classroom learning as part of an MBA programme, 27% of participants indicated that it is ‘always’ or ‘usually’ used.
Virtual reality
The use of virtual reality (VR), including the use of VR materials, courses and campuses, is becoming increasingly common among the world’s top Business Schools.
A quarter (25%) of survey participants said that VR technology is being used for teaching purposes at their Business School. The most common use of VR, cited by 65% of those who indicated the use of this technology, is to make teaching more ‘exciting’. A similar proportion (62%) said their School uses it to modernise the process of teaching. Half of participants said VR is in use to teach in a more productive way, and 46% said it is creating more of a differentiated learning experience for students.
Less commonly cited uses of VR include employing it to adjust to students’ different learning styles (23%) and to bring learning closer to the student interests (35%).
Virtual classrooms
With reference to any programme within an institution’s programme portfolio, 75% of respondents said their Business School currently uses virtual classrooms, 20% said their School does not and 5% do not know.
This is an increase of 25 percentage points from the 51% proportion of respondents who cited the use of a virtual classroom in the last survey. A virtual classroom is here defined as a digital learning environment that allows teachers and students to connect online in real time.
Synchronous vs. asynchronous learning
Looking at both synchronous and asynchronous learning, Business School leaders were asked to rate how effective they believe digital teaching methods are across a range of activities. More than nine in 10 (92%) believe that digital teaching methods are effective in delivering flexibility of learning. A
similar proportion (88%) believe that digital teaching methods are effective for two-way discussions between facilitators and students, and 84% believe they are effective for the ability to work on team projects.
A total of 31% expressed their belief that synchronous digital teaching methods are either ‘much better’ or ‘somewhat better’ than the traditional classroom teaching experience. The equivalent proportion for asynchronous digital teaching methods is just a fraction lower, at 30%.
Even so, Business School leaders generally show much less trust in asynchronous forms of learning than synchronous forms. While 30% of participants think that synchronous digital teaching methods offer a comparable experience to that of the classroom, only 16% feel the same way about asynchronous learning.
How do staff and faculty feel about the implementation of new technology?
Respondents were asked for their views on facilitators and faculty members’ level of satisfaction with the current use of current synchronous digital teaching technologies in their Business School.
Overall, 93% said that they believe that facilitators/faculty are either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’.
Student experience is a central consideration for any form of online learning provision, so participants were asked what they think adds the most to student experience when delivering courses online.
In response, 65% of Business School leaders said they believe the opportunity for students to have break-out sessions adds value. The same proportion also thought that the ability to record sessions adds value. The next most popular answer was the ability to have interactive quizzes and polls (56%). Aspects such as a shared whiteboard space and engagement metrics were deemed to add value by fewer respondents in the survey sample (cited by 34% and 24%, respectively).
Planning ahead
Looking to the future, participants were asked which aspects of changes implemented in the past year they wished to keep. Technology is a clear winner – 84% of participants said they plan to keep new technology adopted and none said that they plan for it to be discarded.
Elsewhere, the consensus in this sample is to keep aspects of the enforced changes: 62% said they plan to keep aspects of faculty teaching online and 65% will look to keep aspects of students not coming to campus, suggesting that Business School leaders envisage the use of hybrid or blended models soon.
Covid-19 has not just affected teaching methods, its impact has been wider than this. An overwhelming 83% of Business School leaders believe that the pandemic has triggered major changes to their Business School’s long-term strategy. Only 17% of participants believe that it has not.
The MBA is the area receiving the most funding for digital teaching methods, with 83% of participants’ Business Schools investing a moderate amount or more in this programme.
Master’s degrees are also receiving significant investment in digital teaching methods. Of those respondents attached to institutions that offer them, 78% said their Business School is investing a moderate amount or more in non-MBA master’s degrees, which represents an increase of nine percentage points on 2020.
Doctorate-level courses are not receiving the same levels of investment for digital teaching at most Schools. For Schools offering doctorates, just 47% of survey participants said their School is investing a moderate amount or more in digital teaching for these programmes and 9% admitted that no budget has been allocated for this at all.
With regards to future investment, 82% of responding Business School leaders said that they are planning to invest further in digital teaching methods over the coming two years. The remaining 18% are unsure.
Respondents were also asked where they believe their Business School’s investment priorities lie
over the next two years. Here, ‘flexibility of learning’ comes out top – 67% of leaders named this as a priority area of investment for their Business School.
Other priorities selected by participants include the enhancement of soft skills (57%) and student engagement metrics (45%). Career services and student wellbeing initiatives are considered less of a priority among respondents, with only 34% and 25% (respectively) believing their Schools will prioritise these areas for investment.
Conclusion
Since AMBA & BGA, in association with Barco, released its first Education Technology Report in January 2021, Business Schools have continued to adapt and ride the wave of tech innovation. Most Business School leaders (84%) want to keep the technology they’ve put in place over the past 18 months, with no respondents wishing to return to their pre-Covid status quo.
But perhaps most importantly, an overwhelming 83% of Business School leaders believe the pandemic has triggered major changes to their long-term strategy. While the jury was divided towards the end of 2020 (among those responding to the report released in January 2021), Business School leaders are now seemingly confident that blended and hybrid models will replace the traditional classroom-based delivery of courses over the next five years.
Covid-19 still looms large over strategists for any immediate initiatives, but the exponential change and evolution witnessed at Business Schools over the past two years has begun to address lingering challenges with which educators had been grappling for years – globalisation, volatility, flexible learning, lifelong learning, consumerisation, the influx of digital natives, to name but a few.
Now that the mechanics are in place for Business Schools to use technology effectively, the opportunities for business education to further develop global, agile, and personalised offerings seem limitless.
