Improving the Value of Major Courses for Graduating Quantitative Versus Qualitative Business Major Students

Abstract

Using two independent academic cohorts, i.e., Fall 2021-Spring 2022 (n = 356) and Fall 2022-Spring 2023 (n = 180) of graduating business students, the relationship of an open item, “what do you believe could have improved the value of your major course experience?”, was asked to both quantitative majors and qualitative majors. Individual majors were coded into broader quantitative and qualitative major categories. The Fall 2021-Spring 2022 sample was broken down into n = 219 quantitative business majors and n = 137 qualitative business majors. The Fall 2022–Spring 2023 sample was broken down into n = 112 quantitative business majors and n = 68 qualitative business majors. Analysis across this open item for both samples of quantitative majors revealed that curriculum improvement was more desired over employment applicable skills. However, the opposite result was found for both samples of qualitative majors, increased employment applicable skills over curriculum improvement. Having improved instruction, e.g., more engaged professors, was a common theme across both majors in both years.