International Masters’ student perspectives of team business simulations

Simulations proliferate within Masters' business programmes, providing learning opportunities less achievable through didactic approaches, particularly in attempting to relate business theory to practice and developing transferable skills such as time management, teamwork, communication and presentation. Student backgrounds are diverse, with tangible variation in age-band and country of origin, particularly in Western HEI settings where there is significant international recruitment from fast growing economies such as China and India. This research addresses calls for international student perspectives of business simulations, using survey of 370 Masters’ students supplemented by a further smaller extended free-response survey. The findings suggest that Asian students are less likely to consider simulations as a useful route to learning or to become acquainted with other students, in comparison with their UK and European counterparts. Whilst students of all nationalities expressed difficulty in applying theory into practice, Asian students in particular voiced discomfort at the levels of student criticality expected within simulation participation. The study calls for future research into the associations between participant demographics and their preferred methods of learning based on established perspectives of simulation team participation.