Can IT Prototyping Enhance Business School Education?

In business school, students must learn essential communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills. In this study, we examine whether the prototyping project in our computer-based information system (CBIS) course enhances these three essential skills. The prototyping process, taught with an information system approach, is the focus of our project-centered teaching method. The pedagogy uses a system development life cycle model to define problems and to analyze, design, and develop computer systems. A questionnaire administered to 184 students who had taken the course suggests that the CBIS course improves communication skills and problemsolving skills than on analytical skills. The prototyping project does not enhance analytical skills, but does significantly enhance communication skills and problem-solving skills. These findings can help to improve the teaching of CBIS to business school students.