Project based Learning to Support Enterprise Business Analytics Education The Role of Cross Functional Groups to Enhance Cognitive Outcomes

摘要

Enterprise business analytics (BA) tools have gained significant attention as a viable option for manipulating large data sets during complex business decision making. However, the cross-functional, boundary spanning nature of these applications make them particularly difficult to learn for users, who predominantly work in functional silos. A typical enterprise BA project involves aggregating large datasets from multiple functional areas, discovering relationships in the data and building models to help visualize and evaluate the selected key performance indicators (KPI). However, most BA learning programs emphasize tool procedural or skill based knowledge, which does not allow end users to understand the broader scope of enterprise analytics project implementations. Cross functional group project based learning programs are needed to provide real world experiences, increasing the end user's motivation to learn and enhancing their cognitive outcomes. There is also a need to create validated models to assess the outcomes of these learning programs. This research study develops and conducts an innovative project based learning program among the users of a leading ERP vendor's analytics tool and collects survey data to confirm the benefits of such group project based learning programs in enhancing the participant's motivation to learn and improving their cognitive outcomes that emphasize cross functional concepts.