PIA P.

PORRAS (MHM Student) March 17, 2012

Hospitality and Tourism Education-Final Examination

RQ 1: What teaching techniques are used in hospitality and tourism classes?

Answer:

Not surprising, a large majority of respondents (83.7%) indicated using lectures either fairly
often or frequently. This finding was commensurate with findings of previous studies.
Hospitality and tourism educators in the sample also employed discussions regularly with
81.6% of respondents indicating the use of discussions. However, whether in lecture or
discussion form, these instructors favored a classroom approach to teaching, with only
16.3% of respondents indicating use of instructional techniques that take place outside of
the classroom (e.g. field trips) frequently or fairly often. Responses approximately normally
distributed about the middle response (sometimes), while the use of panels, symposia, and
forums was not common. Student presentations were popular, with 63.8% of the
respondents indicating that they were used fairly often or frequently. Case studies were
used less often, with 22.8% using them fairly often or frequently. This figure was not as
high as expected due to the common usage of cases in business education, in general.
However, cases are more often used in graduate school (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005) and the
majority of faculty sampled taught undergraduate hospitality students.

RQ 2: What types of support media are used in hospitality and tourism classes?

Answer:

Educators responded that they used electronic slide presentations more than traditional
chalkboards or whiteboards, with 82.6% of respondents indicating use of electronic slides
either fairly often or frequently, versus 44.4% for chalkboards or whiteboards (See Table
2). A post hoc regression analysis between electronic slide presentation use and chalkboard
or whiteboard use indicated no significant correlation (F=2.08, p=0.15). The authors
surmised that a negative correlation between these two variables would indicate a
preference toward higher technology display media. In other words, although electronic
slide presentations were used more by respondents over chalkboards or whiteboards, use
of the higher technology media did not appear to preclude use of traditional media.
Hospitality and tourism educators moderately incorporated online resources managed by
their institutions into their teaching techniques, with 52% of respondents indicating use of
web-based communication systems (e.g. Blackboard) either fairly often or frequently.
RQ 3: What evaluation activities for students are used in hospitality and tourism classes?

Answer:

Written tests and essays were frequently used when evaluating students in hospitality and
tourism classrooms with respondents indicating the use of written tests (79.1%) and essays
(54.1%) either fairly often or frequently, as presented in Table 3. Other forms of
assessment such as oral and take-home tests were not common student evaluation
methods, whereas another individual evaluation method, the term paper or project, was
used fairly often by 41.8% and frequently by 30.1% of those sampled. Overall, hospitality
and tourism educators favored objective forms of student evaluation, with 80% of
respondents indicating use of anecdotal records never, very infrequently, or only some of
the time. Understandably, this may be due to university restrictions rather than an
educator’s preference, where to be fair to students, evaluation in courses must be
standardized with little left to subjective interpretation. Group projects were common with
68.9% of respondents indicating use of this evaluation method either fairly often or
frequently. However, group projects with deliverable products to organizations were far less
common; only 25% of respondents indicated use of this method either fairly often or
frequently. Finally, student self-assessment as an evaluation method was uncommon with
64.2% of respondents indicating use of self-assessment checklists either never or very
infrequently. Similarly, 67.9% of respondents indicated using student journals either never
or very infrequently.

RQ 4: What evaluation activities for educators are used in hospitality and tourism classes?

Answer:

Thirty percent (30.7%) of respondents indicated using self-assessment checklists either

fairly often or frequently and student feedback appeared to be an important method of
educator evaluation, with 81.6% of respondents using this method either fairly often or
frequently. However, the authors recognize that many universities require student feedback
as a means to assess courses. Periodic student logs were not used much to assess teaching
with over 80% of respondents indicating that they either never or very infrequently use this
method, and while observation by a colleague was used either fairly often or frequently by
21.4% of respondents, only 3% opted for the more self-oriented evaluation of videotaping
lessons
RQ 5: Which activities influence how educators teach in hospitality and tourism classes?

Answer:

Hospitality and tourism educators were somewhat adventurous and independent, with
64.2% of respondents indicating trial and error as an influencing factor fairly often or
frequently when choosing teaching methods, as can be seen in Table 4. As far as self-
evaluation, 60.7% indicated that it influenced their teaching fairly often or frequently, while
78.6% of respondents suggested that student feedback influenced their teaching fairly
often or frequently. Outside influences for respondents (indicated with answers of fairly
often or frequently) varied, but the most commonly mentioned influence was discussions
with peers (62.7%).

RQ 6: Which teaching techniques and activities are most successful according to educators?

Answer:

One-hundred fifty-nine respondents answered an open-ended question asking them to give

an example of what they considered to be a successful teaching technique or activity. Not
surprisingly, responses varied greatly. Case studies and projects were each mentioned by
14 respondents (8.8% each for those who answered the question). Field trips and some
type of interactive activity where students work together in small groups were mentioned
by seven respondents each (4.4%). Games were mentioned by six people (3.7%) and
simulations and discussions were each specifically noted by five (3.1%). Sixteen items were
mentioned by four people (2.5%) each, including: the use of industry panels, attending and
evaluating career fairs, interviewing hospitality managers, participating in customer service
role plays, participating in internships, completing Internet assignments, acting as secret
shoppers or critics of hospitality operations, critiquing restaurants, designing menus and
preparing food for special groups, conducting international trips, engaging in community
based service-learning activities, engaging in industry-related service projects, developing
and completing research projects for poster or other research presentations, developing
and marketing new products, participating in capstone or senior course experiences, and
taking part in industry days at the university. Activities mentioned by three people (1.8%)
each included job shadowing, participating in mock-interviews, designing and creating a
model hotel or resort, developing research designs or problem statements, and assigning
additional books such as novels for extra credit or a book discussion. Two respondents
(1%) each mentioned attending an industry–related show with students and analyzing it as
a class, leadership activities, and completing literature reviews for research papers or as
standalone assignments. A variety of other ideas were mentioned once by 36 respondents.
RQ 7: What are the most effective teaching methods according to educators?

Answer:

Respondents were also asked the following question: What do you believe is (are) the most
effective teaching method(s) for hospitality and tourism and why? Again, 159 people
answered this item and their answers varied, many commenting on the need for both
theory and practice. Thirty-nine respondents (24.5%) mentioned that a combination of
techniques was most effective; thirty-seven respondents

(23.3%) reported the importance of experiential, hands-on learning and of getting students
involved in the real world of the industry as being most effective.

RQ 8: Is there a relationship between the teaching techniques, support media, evaluation

activities, and influences on hospitality and tourism educators and the following variables:

A. public versus private schools,

B. two-year versus four-year schools,

C. type of teaching position held by the educator, and

D. sex of the educator.

Answer:

To further the understanding of hospitality and tourism teaching, tests of differences in

means were calculated for four groups of respondents using an ANOVA. The authors carried
out the tests in an exploratory fashion to help reveal differences that might have otherwise
gone unnoticed and to provide suggestions for future research focusing on these categories
of respondents. Given the exploratory nature of these analyses, the present authors
assumed that a significance factor (p-value) of 0.10 was a reasonable cut-off point for
indicating whether a significant difference warranted discussion.