A discontinuous curricular innovation: market database development.

Larsen, Val ; Stanton, Angela D'Auria ; Wright, Newell D. 等

ABSTRACT

Information management is, increasingly, becoming a fundamental marketing skill. But this fact is not reflected in the traditional marketing curriculum, which gives little attention to the hands-on use of databases and statistical packages. So this article proposes a curriculum change--the introduction of a new course, Market Database Development--designed to address this lack of training in information management and to implement the three-stage learning process of King, Wood, and Mines (1990). The article discusses the content and structure of the new course and its position within an updated Marketing curriculum.

INTRODUCTION

The past decade has produced enormous changes in marketing practice. With some lag, those changes in practice--and new AACSB standards (AACSB 2000)--are beginning to stimulate substantial changes in marketing education, particularly with respect to globalization and technology (Graef 1998; Moon 1999; Pharr and Morris 1997; Smart, Tomkovick, Jones and Menon 1999). But the transformation of marketing education is far from complete, and the marketing curriculum continues to be criticized by students, legislators, and business leaders for being static and unchanging (Butler and Straughn-Mizerski 1998), unresponsive and irrelevant (Smart, Kelly, and Conant 1999), and ineffective and out of touch (Catterall and Clarke 2000; Smart, Kelly, and Conant 1999). So while changes are occurring, marketing educators are, nevertheless, accused of changing their programs too slowly and infrequently. In effect, they are accused of violating their own dicta, of teaching students that businesses must anticipate change and adapt quickly but of not practicing what they preach (Shuptrine and Willenborg 1998).

These criticisms and environmental changes have produced calls for a root-and-branch rethinking of marketing education at the undergraduate (Lamont and Friedman 1997; Smart et al. 1999) and graduate levels (Ghandi and Bodkin 1996; Moon 1999; Smart, Kelly, and Conant 1999), including calls for the development of a "fourth generation marketing curriculum," a curriculum that emphasizes communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and technology skills, all within a global, ethical perspective (Hill 1997; Pharr and Morris 1997). These calls from inside and outside the marketing education community highlight the growing importance of an ability to use technology to define and solve marketing problems (Shuptrine and Willenborg 1998).

This paper discusses the effort of one marketing program to address these concerns by replacing its traditional marketing curriculum with a new curriculum more suitable for the new economy. Specifically, it discusses changes made in the marketing curriculum at [University Name] to more fully develop technology and problem solving skills. The most important part of this curricular change was a radical restructuring of the traditional Marketing Research course, a transformation that narrowed the focus of the course while expanding the coverage of issues related to the use of information in marketplace decision making. This was accomplished by breaking apart and distributing the content of the traditional course over other courses and by creating a new technology and information intensive course, Market Database Development. This paper focuses upon the content of this new course, which was specially designed to help students position themselves at the nexus of technology and business decision making. After discussing at some length the logic and structure of this new course, the paper concludes with lessons learned in this effort to transform the marketing curriculum and make it more relevant to current business practice.

MARKETING CURRICULUM

Many studies have emphasized the centrality of technology in the transformation and revitalization the marketing curriculum (Benbunan-Fich, et al. 2001; Butler and Straughn-Mizerski 1998; Castleberry 2001; Floyd and Gordon 1998; Gault, Redington, and Schlager 2000; Ghandi and Bodkin 1996; Koch 1997; LaBarbera and Simonoff 1999; Lamb, Shipp, and Moncrief 1995; Lamont and Friedman 1997; Moon 1999; Siegel 2000; Shuptrine and Willenborg 1998; Sterngold and Hurlbert 1998). One major focus of these studies is information literacy--the importance of developing in students an ability to use, analyze, and interpret the vast amounts of data they will encounter after graduation. Sterngold and Hurlbert (1998) offer an explicit definition of information literacy with three dimensions: technical, reflective, and professional. In brief, they describe technical information literacy as

 a working knowledge of both traditional and new information
 sources, technologies, and datagathering methods (primary and
 secondary) and the ability to apply this knowledge to solve
 practical problems and gain new knowledge. (p. 244)

Reflective information literacy, they define as the

 ability to critically evaluate both the sources and contents of
 information, and then to make intelligent decisions about if and
 how to use information based on these evaluations. (p. 245)

And professional information literacy is defined as

 the ability to understand and use the specialized concepts and
 language of a profession or discipline as they are understood and
 used by its practitioners. (p. 245)

A key to developing information literacy across all three of its dimensions, Sterngold and Hurlbert argue, is exposing students to hands-on exercises that make them select, evaluate, and use information of various types from various sources. Likewise cognizant of the increasing importance of information and information systems in marketing practice, Ghandi and Bodkin (1996) have proposed a still more dramatic transformation of the marketing curriculum, the development of new systems focused courses and of a new Marketing Information Systems (MkIS) track within Marketing.

Having recognized that their Marketing graduates were not adequately prepared to acquire and critically evaluate information using technologies widely available to practitioners, the Marketing faculty at [University Name] decided to restructure their curriculum along lines suggested by Ghandi and Bodkin (1996), Sterngold and Hurlbert (1998), and others (see [citation of authors to be added after review process] for complete details). This restructuring involved the creation of an MkIS concentration in Marketing and the previously mentioned simultaneous expansion of overall coverage but narrowing of immediate focus in the traditional Marketing Research course.

MARKETING RESEARCH COURSE

Traditionally, Marketing Research has been a one-semester course, typically taught at the junior or senior level, that covered research design, secondary data analysis, various methods of primary data collection, including survey and experimental designs, questionnaire design and development, and a review of basic statistics and data analysis approaches. Many universities have required a basic statistics course as a prerequisite for Marketing Research. However, there has usually been a gap of one or more years between the initial exposure to statistics and matriculation in Marketing Research. Consequently, many students have forgotten much of what they learned in their basic or business statistics course by the time they take Marketing Research. Thus, many students enter Marketing Research ill prepared for the material, which often results in a negative experience in the course (Nonis and Hudson 1999).

Stearns and Crespy (1995) suggest that this lack of preparation is rooted in a larger problem and, therefore, recommend a radical change in the process by which students are taught to analyze business information and make marketing decisions. Using King, Wood, and Mines' (1990) three-stage learning hierarchy (see exhibit 1), they identify a stage 2 gap in the pedagogical process between the stage 1 course (Principles of Marketing) and stage 3 courses (e.g., Marketing Research, Marketing Management). This instructional gap leaves students unprepared for advanced marketing courses. To fill this gap, they propose the creation of a new, stage 2 course that could be taken between Principles and the more advanced courses. This Marketing Analysis (p. 25) course should stress the evaluation of marketing information and the use of basic analytical tools. It should help students recognize the content and structural form of marketing problems, cover measurement issues, including validity and reliability, discuss statistical inference, sources of error, estimation of population parameters, and decision theory.

Marshall (1996) identifies another problem with the traditional Marketing Research course. It places, he says, too great an emphasis on primary data collection, too little on the vast amount of secondary data available in existing company databases or online. Primary data collection is usually expensive and project oriented. Secondary data, particularly internal secondary data, is relatively inexpensive and increasingly ubiquitous. Its use is increasingly a routine and yet critical part of marketing operations. It has become, in McKim's (1999) words, the "newest currency" of business. It is, therefore, especially important that Marketing graduates be prepared to analyze and make decisions based on secondary information. Marshall, therefore, suggests that less attention be devoted to primary data collection in order to clear space in Marketing Research courses for additional attention to the analysis of secondary data and other MkIS issues.

Like Marshall (1996), Catterall and Clarke (2000) criticize traditional Marketing Research pedagogy, arguing that it ignores the real needs of students. They suggest that current textbooks overemphasize the ad hoc data collection typical of primary research and pay too little attention to the growth area, the continuous research that focuses on the analysis of data generated in ordinary business operations. Most students, they claim, will have to deal with large amounts of internal secondary data. And while they will purchase and use external secondary research, few will become market researchers themselves and produce the primary marketing research that receives so much textbook and course attention.

The dominant importance of secondary data is a function not only of the fact that internal secondary data is an inevitable byproduct of computerized business operations but also of the fact that search engine technologies are making it very easy to gather large quantities of relevant external secondary data on competitor activities and on industry and consumer trends (Siegel 2000). Unsurprisingly, students who know how to access, manipulate, and interpret internal and external secondary data are in great demand (Heckman 1999). Thus, database technology skills have become increasingly important, for they allow marketers to extract usable information from the terabytes of data already available on consumer behaviors. Using the data captured in existing databases, marketers can identify untapped market niches (Palmquist and Ketola 1999), even targeting individual consumers in one-to-one campaigns (Hu 2000). Thus, a focus on database capture and analysis of secondary data would seem to be an especially important part of future Marketing Research courses.

MARKETING RESEARCH AT [UNIVERSITY NAME]

The Marketing research course taught at [University Name] prior to the fall 1999 semester had many of the problems described above: ineffective teaching of statistics to students who were ill prepared for the course content, heavy emphasis on primary survey research at the expense of secondary data analysis (the vast body of data in company databases and on the Internet was virtually ignored), and students who left the course feeling ill-prepared for their future roles as marketing managers. Thanks in part to the university's longstanding commitment to and experience with assessment, faculty were aware of these and other shortcomings and, therefore, decided to restructure both the course and the major. The traditional catchall Marketing major was eliminated. It was replaced by three more narrowly focused concentrations, Business to Business Marketing, Business to Consumer Marketing, and Marketing Information Systems. Marketing Research, as it is traditionally taught, was not required for any of the three concentrations, and the course was eliminated.

The traditional Marketing Research course was eliminated not because faculty judged information about the marketplace to be unimportant. On the contrary, it was judged to be so important that the marketing program could no longer settle for the inadequate traditional course. Faculty were determined to give all students a substantial experience with the collection and use of non-quantitative data (a topic that had received little attention in Marketing Research), a substantial experience with the construction and use of databases (another topic that had previously received little attention), and a deeper engagement with quantitative data analysis--the use of statistics to evaluate data and answer marketing questions. They wanted to make available, as well, a significant experience with data mining, data collection on the Internet, and more in-depth training in primary data collection. Clearly, all of this material could not be contained in a single course. It had to be parceled out across several courses, some being new offerings.

It was apparent to the faculty that if they wanted to give students a significant experience with the collection and evaluation of non-quantitative data, the place to do it was Consumer Behavior. Consumer behavior researchers have made extensive use of non-quantitative, interpretive research methods for more than a decade (Hudson and Ozanne 1988; Sherry 1991), and these methods and their application to the study of consumer behavior are discussed in available textbooks (e,g., Solomon 1999). So the faculty decided to teach qualitative research methods in Consumer Behavior. All sections of this course now contain as a major component a discussion of qualitative research methods and a qualitative research project in which students collect and interpret depth interview and/or focus group data. The project requires that students either show the applicability of existing consumer behavior theories to this complex data or propose theories of their own that highlight patterns of consumer behavior in the textual data.

The other research emphases were to be covered in four new courses: Market Database Development, Data Mining (which covers experimental design and market testing, development and deployment of statistical predictive models, customer lifetime value, RFM, Customer Relationship Management, etc.), Strategic Internet Marketing (which covers online market research, internet search strategies, weblog analysis, search engine positioning, etc.), and Survey Research (which covers primary data collection, questionnaire design, survey sampling, analysis and interpretation of survey-based data, interactions with an external client, etc.). Market Database Development would be required of all students and would be taken in the curriculum immediately following Principles. Focusing on basic database and statistics skills, it would fill the Stage 2 gap identified by Stearns and Crespy (1995). Building upon that Stage 2 understanding, students would be required (in the MkIS concentration) or could opt (in the Business to Business or Business to Consumer concentrations) to receive additional, in-depth instruction in Data Mining, Strategic Internet Marketing, and/or Survey Research, all of which presupposed the database and statistical skills acquired in Market Database Development (Nonis and Hudson 1999). Only the Survey Research course would treat primary data collection and analysis, the traditional focus of Marketing Research courses. And students would come to this traditional material equipped to work at Stage 3, developing a degree of competence in primary data collection that no single, broad course could deliver.

MARKET DATABASE DEVELOPMENT

The conception of the Market Database Development course and efforts to implement and improve it were inspired to a substantial degree by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA; http://www.the-dma.org) and its very active higher education outreach arm, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF; http://www.the-dma.org/dmef/index.shtml). Member businesses of this association have historically been the preeminent database marketers. The faculty's understanding of the increasingly critical role of databases and the statistical analysis of internal secondary data flowed, in part, from the close relationship some faculty had with the DMA and DMEF. And these organizations have played and are playing an important role in our efforts to strengthen the course. As previously mentioned, Market Database Development is placed in the curriculum immediately following Principles to address concerns raised by Stearns and Crespy (1995). Since this course is the most important new addition to the marketing curriculum, its structure and content will be described in some detail.

Course Focus. Market Database Development focuses on training students to use the two most important data analysis software tools--databases and statistical packages. The flow chart in Exhibit 2 shows the sequence of the main course topics, which begin with databases, then move to statistics. Microsoft Access is the specific software package on which students learn how to develop and use relational databases; SPSS is the statistical package on which they learn how to do basic statistical data analysis. Because this course emphasizes hands-on training in the use of the software, it is taught in a computer lab where students have access to Microsoft Access and SPSS.

Texts. Two texts are required: New Perspectives on Microsoft Access 2000 Comprehensive (Adamski, Finnegan and Hommel 2001) and Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics (Salkind 2000). The Access text discusses database concepts and terminology and provides students with step-by-step tutorials in the use of various features of the database management software. The statistics text reviews measurement and then discusses exploratory and inferential data analysis.

Market Database Development is taught as a web-enhanced course. The texts are supplemented with materials posted to the instructor's course website in a variety of formats, e.g., PowerPoint slides, Word documents, and HTML links and pages. These materials, developed by the instructor or culled from a variety of sources, play an important integrative role in the course. They are used to illustrate how databases may be deployed to organize data, develop segmentation strategies, and execute marketing campaigns. They help students understand the context and use of the specific skills that are the main focus of the course. Also posted to the website are numerous in-class and homework assignments that provide the very necessary hands-on component of the course. Access and SPSS data files are posted on the website with the assignments. The typical outline of the course is described in some detail below and is illustrated more briefly in Exhibit 3.

Course Outline. The first half of the course focuses on the development and use of marketing databases. The first, primarily conceptual week provides an overview of database marketing and the course. In courses with an applications orientation, it is especially important that students understand how the specific tools and techniques are situated within the broader discipline and practice of marketing. So instructors help students understand that information is an essential asset for marketers as they engage in the fundamental marketing function--the arrangement of mutually beneficial exchanges between buyers and sellers (Baggozzi 1975). Instructors help students understand that information systems in general and database and statistical packages in particular are essential tools in the efficient management of information and, therefore, in the optimization of the exchange process.

Instructors also review in some detail the important role that market segmentation plays in the optimization of the exchange process. Students are reminded that marketers may enhance quality of life (and earn outsized profits) if they can identify populations with unmet needs and arrange to meet those needs with tailored and targeted products. Various business development strategies are reviewed, with special attention to the importance of acquiring new customers and further penetrating existing markets. Students come to understand the central role that database marketing plays in the actual practice of the market segmentation they have learned about in Principles of Marketing and other business classes. Thus, Market Database Development is positioned as a course that will give students the database and statistical skills they need to move beyond the knowledge that market segmentation is desirable to the actual practice of market segmentation.

During the second and third weeks of the class, the students are introduced to database terminology and concepts that provide the conceptual underpinning for the database component of the course, e.g., the distinction between data and metadata. They are also introduced to the process of planning and designing relational databases. While most marketing graduates will not be directly responsible for the design of marketing databases, they need to understand the basic logic of relational design so that they can communicate with their firm's market database developers, helping the developers understand the needs of marketing managers while also understanding, themselves, the constraints the database developers face. Students gain this knowledge of design issues, in part, by completing an assignment in which they normalize a database. Normalization ensures that the entities and attributes captured in the database are embodied in tables in such a way that they are grouped on functionality and are minimally redundant. During the second week, students are also introduced to Microsoft Access, the specific database management program taught in the course. The students begin to learn about the capabilities of the program as they are exposed, in turn, to each of the various objects in Access.

The third week of class is dedicated to the development, modification, and manipulation of tables within Access. The students learn how to create new tables by importing data from other programs such as Microsoft Excel. They also learn to create tables using Access wizards (an embedded step-by-step module for novice users) and design view where the user enters all of the table criteria (a feature provided for more advanced users). They learn to select the appropriate field types and formats, then how to use mask and input validation to expedite and avoid errors in data entry. Once the tables are created, students learn how to insert and delete or otherwise modify existing fields and records, e.g., by resizing fields or changing field criteria.

During this week, students also learn the functions of primary and foreign keys in a relational database. This leads directly to a discussion of how relationships are created among tables and of the various relationship types: one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many. Students also learn about referential integrity (a set of rules that ensure a database will be free of unlinked data fragments) and about various ways of joining tables in Access, e.g., through inner and outer joins.

During the fourth, fifth, and sixth weeks of class, students learn how to query tables within a database, a critical skill in the identification and targeting of market segments. Queries are particularly important in marketing because they allow the users to explore the data by asking ad hoc questions, questions that may, if intelligently posed, identify subpopulations with unmet needs. They may also be used operationally, to select records suitable for a particular targeted campaign. In this section of the course, students learn, through extensive hands-on exercises, how to establish scoping criteria and carry out select, crosstab, and parameter queries. They also learn to use various action queries (delete, update, append, and make table). Students are also introduced, briefly, to structured query language (SQL). They are not taught to program queries in SQL but are made aware that SQL resides behind the queries they develop using the Access query interface.

The next two weeks of the course focus on the development of forms, reports, data access pages, and macros. Forms, reports, and pages are tools used to present the data in tables or queries in a variety of output formats. Forms facilitate data entry and the presentation of information on computer monitors. Reports make possible a hierarchical ordering of the data that presents data attractively and clearly on paper. Pages allow data to be reported internally on a company's intranet or externally on the Internet. This portion of the course concludes with a limited discussion of macros.

The second half of the course focuses on analyzing the information contained within databases. In many respects, it is positioned as a sophisticated extension of the query function in a database. Students come to understand that a statistical package offers many options--beyond those available in the database crosstab and total queries--for analyzing data with an eye to market segmentation. Thus, statistical logic and procedures are presented as critical tools in data mining, market analysis, and marketing management decision-making.

The ninth week of class begins the transition from database development to statistical analysis. The section begins with a review of the levels of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio). The class learns the logic that differentiates the measurement levels and, more importantly, how to identify each level of measurement for fields of an existing database. The measures of central tendency and spread are reviewed along with various formulas for calculating key measures, e.g., the standard deviation.

During the tenth week of class, the students are taught how to select an appropriate analytical technique when given particular kinds of data and particular research questions. This section of the course links the posing of research questions to measurement and experimental design issues. Thus, students learn how to select an appropriate statistical procedure when confronted with particular measurement levels (nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio), design types (within, between-subjects), and research or segmentation questions, i.e., a need to summarize data or test for group differences or identify associations between variables. Students learn to select appropriate procedures by applying decision trees in scenario analyses that feature typical business problems and issues

In the eleventh week of the course, the SPSS statistical package is formally introduced. Students learn how to create an SPSS data file (both from scratch and by importing data from Excel and Access files) and how to compute new variables from existing variables. This and the subsequent three weeks of the semester are allocated to sampling distributions, hypothesis testing, and significance testing. Having previously discussed the logic one uses in selecting statistical tests, students now select and use a variety of tests, both parametric (i.e., independent and paired samples t-tests, within and between subjects ANOVAs, the Pearson correlation) and non-parametric (i.e., two independent and two related groups, K independent and K related groups, the Chi-Square test, and Spearman Correlation). Learning to run the tests in SPSS is an important but small part of this section of the course. (SPSS is not difficult to master). Most of the time is devoted to learning how to interpret the statistical outputs, how to draw out their implications for management decision making, particularly with respect to the development of market segmentation strategies. Thus, the emphasis is on application, not mechanical calculation (Nonis and Hudson 1999).

In the final week of the course, an effort is made to integrate the database and statistics portions of the course so that students come to see Microsoft Access and SPSS (and competitive alternatives) as complementary tools that may be used to develop market segments and carry out a targeted marketing strategy.

In-Class Assignments, Homework, and Integrative Projects. Grades are based on three course components: assignments (completed in-class or as homework), examinations, and integrative projects. Typically, the weights assigned to each of these elements for a student's final grade (actual weights vary somewhat by individual instructor) are as follows: (1) in-class and homework assignments, 20% to 25%, (2) examinations, 40% to 50%, and (3) projects, 30% to 40%.

It is critically important for students to complete a large number of regularly scheduled, hands-on assignments in this course, both in-class assignments that demonstrate the student's ability to perform certain tasks within a specified time and homework assignments that can be more extensive and require the integrated use of a wider range of Access and SPSS procedures. Assignments are graded to give students both an incentive to do them and feedback on whether or not they are developing the skills taught in the course. Focusing as it does on software tools and well-defined analytical processes, this course makes it relatively easy to create assignments that build incrementally, process by process, skill by skill (see Exhibit 4 for an outline of sample assignments). Moving incrementally through the course material and engaging in the hands-on use of the tools and in practical decision making at each successive stage, students generally become confident in their ability to apply to business problems the many database and statistical procedures covered in the course. Naturally, they cannot be made fully aware of the complexities of market segmentation and target marketing in a single, narrowly focused course. Most come to a deeper awareness of the uses and limitations of databases and statistics only in subsequent Stage 3 courses where they must confront relatively unstructured business problems.

Depending on the instructor's preference either two or three examinations are given during the course. The first exam covers the database portion of the course, the second, the statistical portion. Some instructors include a final exam that generally covers both topics. All three exams have two parts. The first part, which is generally multiple choice or short answer (but which also includes one or two essay questions in some sections), focuses on assessing the students' understanding of conceptual material presented in the class, e.g., the distinctions between data and metadata, between queries, forms, and reports, between different kinds of queries, different measurement levels, and different statistical tests. The second part of the exam requires students to use the various Access or SPSS procedures they have learned to answer a series of questions. This second part of the test demonstrates that the student can actually apply the concepts covered in the first part as they use Access and SPSS.

One or two integrative projects are also assigned. The projects are generally group-based, with teams of two to three class members. This provides the students with a simulation of real-world problem solving--an opportunity to use the ubiquitous database and statistical package software tools in the still more ubiquitous collaborative work environment. In sections where two projects are assigned, the first is a database project. Using Access, students help a fictional organization answer various business questions using internal secondary data. They generate reports that motivate/support their decisions using the report object in Access. In the second project, they do much the same thing using SPSS. In some sections, the two projects are combined in a single project that requires the integrated use of Access and SPSS.

Lessons Learned (So Far)

Market Database Development was first offered at [University Name] during the fall, 1999 semester. As of this writing (spring semester, 2003), six full student cohorts have taken the course. The first cohort graduated in May 2001, so it is still too early to assess the overall impact of this relatively new course offering. Nevertheless, certain things have been learned in the process of developing and implementing this course (see Exhibit 5 for a summary of the lessons learned to date).

One fact became clear very early on as the course was conceived and initial development began: staffing issues would be critically important. Ultimately, the program found it necessary to take a "grow your own" approach to staffing. Candidates with a Ph.D. in Marketing and extensive knowledge of database technology were rare and expensive. And since the course was to be required of all marketing majors, three to six sections would need to be offered each semester. Thus, the course could not be implemented without a commitment from existing faculty to develop new competencies in the use of statistical packages (where all had some previous training) and database management systems (where most had no previous training). A sufficient number of faculty were willing to commit to upgrading their skills, so the project was undertaken. Actually developing the requisite new skills then required a heavy investment of faculty time. That commitment of time was minimized to some extent through extensive sharing of lecture notes and course materials. And in faculty recruiting since the advent of the new curriculum, the program has sought out candidates who were at least technophilic if not explicitly credentialed as database marketers. It has succeeded in hiring three technophilic new faculty who came to [University Name] in part because they were excited by the new curriculum. The program is hopeful that the hiring of technologically capable faculty will become less difficult as Ph.D. programs become more attuned to contemporary marketing practice and adapt their programs accordingly, making marketing technology an integral part of their curriculum.

Another concern in teaching a class with multiple sections and multiple instructors was the issue of consistency. While consistency across sections can be an issue in any course, it was critically important in the case of Market Database Development because the course provides the foundation for follow-on, stage three courses. While permitting faculty members to have their own pedagogical style, the Marketing program wanted to ensure that the course objectives were tightly specified and sufficiently addressed in all sections. To achieve this end, objectives were described in considerable detail (a task facilitated by the logical and/or procedural subject matter) and faculty committed to work not in a vacuum but, rather, collaboratively, sharing materials, assignments, and databases to help ensure consistency.

Since Market Database Development was a discontinuous innovation in the marketing curriculum, no resource materials explicitly adapted to it were available. The most problematic deficit was the lack of a suitable textbook that integrated training in the use of a database management system with a review of basic statistics and training in the use of a statistical package, all within a marketing context. As previously mentioned, separate Access and SPSS texts were available and were adopted. They have not, however, proven to be entirely satisfactory. The statistics text initially adopted, SPSS 10.0 Guide to Data Analysis (Norusis 2000), presupposed too much background knowledge to be entirely useful for our undergraduates and was dropped. The text adopted in its place, Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics (Salkind 2000), is well written and pitched at the right level for our undergraduates, but it does not use marketing examples to develop the statistical principles it discusses.

This lack of integration in the textbooks has affected pedagogical outcomes. Many students have had a difficult time seeing the relationship between the two halves of the course. They see it as having two entirely discrete sections, database and statistics. As of this writing, the faculty teaching the course are working to highlight for students the complementary roles of Access and SPSS in the market segmentation and target marketing process. The Direct Marketing Association also makes available for a nominal fee several large databases that may be used for classroom instruction in database marketing and in the statistical analysis of marketing performance. The course instructors are using these databases generated by successful database marketers in an effort to more fully integrate the database and statistics parts of the course. Instructors are also developing databases of their own suitable for extensive use in both the database and statistics portions of the course.

In recent iterations of the course, students have been asked to move data more frequently between the database and statistical package applications. And one faculty member has experimented with weaving together the two sections of the course, covering databases through queries, then turning to SPSS and explicitly treating the statistical portion of the course as an extension of the query function in Access, and finally, returning to Access to conclude with forms and reports. The effort to more fully integrate the use of databases and statistical analysis will continue.

Another factor proved to have a still larger effect on pedagogical outcomes than the lack of suitable textbooks--the lack of a suitable computer lab. Since none of the university's computer labs were set up specifically to support classroom instruction, the course was initially taught in a regular classroom where the students did not have access to a computer. Instructors demonstrated Access and SPSS procedures on screen. Students then replicated the procedures in student labs when doing homework assignments.

Faculty knew this approach was not optimal and, eventually, arranged to teach the course in student labs where every student had access to a computer during class. In spite of the fact that available student computer labs were not designed and were not entirely suitable for classroom instruction, pedagogical outcomes improved dramatically when instruction was moved to a lab. While teaching in a computer lab certainly has its issues and constraints (e.g., different teaching styles need to be employed, equipment can and does fail, students work at different speeds, online distractions, etc.), teaching the course in a lab allowed more material to be covered, and all covered material was more deeply learned. Thus, the Marketing program now regards hands-on use of computers during classroom instruction as an essential part of this course.

THE IMPACT OF THE MARKET DATABASE DEVELOPMENT COURSE

As previously mentioned, Market Database Development is still relatively new. But while it is too early to assess the long-term impact of the course, the Marketing program has been able to evaluate success to date using a variety of assessment mechanisms. In addition to using the usual student course evaluations, the program has assessed the value of this course through discussions among Marketing program faculty, qualitative and quantitative exit surveys of graduating seniors, and an annual survey of internship employers and on-campus recruiters.

As they evaluate their instructors, students in the Market Database Development course often comment positively about the applied nature of the course. The following comments are typical:

* In this class we applied marketing concepts to a real life situation. I learned marketing skills that I will actually use in the real world.

* I found the class to be one of the most useful I have taken so far at school. The projects and assignments are designed so that we actually get to put into use all the things we have been studying, not just regurgitate them back onto a test.

* The class was quite challenging and required a lot of continuous work. At the end of it all, I feel that I learned and accomplished a lot.

The course has also been beneficial to faculty members teaching courses that follow Market Database Development. As one faculty member noted: "I don't have to review basic statistics anymore. Students are ready to go, so I can cover more material at a more in-depth level than I was able to before we had the course." Another faculty member adds,

* The nice thing about Market Database Development is that I don't have to spend extensive class time in my Data Mining course discussing databases and how they're used. Since the students already have this background coming in, I can immediately move on to more complex issues such as data warehousing. I also know the students come in knowing how to run and interpret basic statistics. This means I can move into the more advanced statistical procedures and spend more time there rather than having to review the more basic concepts.

In 2001, the Marketing program began to conduct an annual study of graduating seniors' satisfaction with the program. The study includes both qualitative research, in the form of focus groups, and a quantitative survey. In the focus groups, students noted that their understanding of databases and their ability to analyze data statistically gave them a differential advantage over students graduating from other schools. For example, one student commented, "the Marketing program is progressive, very up-to-date, and offers undergraduate courses, like the market database and data mining classes, that are not taught at other schools." The quantitative survey results also demonstrated the value of the Market Database Development course. Students were satisfied with the Marketing program's ability to teach them how to work with databases and conduct statistical analyses. And the database and statistics items were significant predictors of overall satisfaction with how well students had been prepared for a successful career ([r.sup.2] = .279).

There is a great deal of evidence that the practical skills taught in this course are highly valued by employers (Arnold 1998; Davis, Misra, and Van Auken 2000; Gault, Redington, and Schlager 2000). This fact has been confirmed for students in their internships and entry-level jobs. Summarizing student reports on their internship experiences, our internship program director recently sent out the following e-mail comment:

* I have been doing exit interviews with my internship students all week, and I can say without hesitation that the Access component of [Market Database Development] has been extremely valuable to these interns. I usually get a variation of this story: "I came in and showed everyone how to do Access. I was the Access guru, and now they want to hire me full time." The students are usually thrilled with the prospect. A common lament is, "I wish I had paid more attention while in class."

And students who have graduated and begun their careers have found that their data analysis skills do differentiate them from others and make them more valuable to their firm. Thus, one recent graduate wrote in a letter:

* Recently, because of the convenience of Microsoft Office, upper management has been trying to dump the company's database into Access to work with it. (It is actually a database much like the models we worked with, comprised of a series of construction products, contact names, prices, etc.) They want to use it to give them transaction info. As you can probably imagine, NO ONE here knows Access, including our "technical support" guy. As a result, I have been helping management deal with the database. I actually solved a major problem that allowed the rest of the database to work last week.... I tell you this story not to brag, but to let you know that your class helped someone--who once thought she was hopeless with computers--discover that they are not that scary after all. I feel very fortunate and marketable now because I learned how to work with Access.

In addition to conducting exit interviews with student interns, the program has recently begun to conduct surveys of internship employers and on-campus recruiters. In these surveys, respondents rated the students from the Marketing program as "much better than average" in their information technology and analytical skills. Students received their highest ratings on these items.

In the coming academic year, recent alumni will be surveyed to get more formal and comprehensive evidence on the impact of Marketing program curriculum changes on student careers. But given the rapidity of changes in technology and marketing practice and the consequent necessity of continuously adapting course content, the curriculum innovation cycle for Market Database Development will always have a shorter duration than the formal curriculum assessment cycle. Consequently, though the course may be fairly stable in its broad outlines, faculty judgment and anecdotal evidence must bear a heavier than usual burden in the assessment of course effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

The actual practice of marketing is, increasingly, inseparable from the use of technology to manage information. People who can use information technology to solve problems are moving "to center stage in the global economy. They are fast becoming the new aristocracy" (Rifken 1995, p. 174). Information technology skills coupled with a strong analytical background will increasingly provide students with an important point of differentiation and competitive advantage (Atwong and Hugstad 1997; Benbaum-Fich et al 2001). If they are to prepare students to function effectively in this new, information-intensive environment, academic programs in Marketing must change their curriculum to more fully deal with technology and information management issues. Judging from early assessment efforts, the achievement of these important pedagogical objectives would seem to be facilitated by a curricular model that incorporates a Market Database Development course within the larger three stage learning hierarchy of King, Wood, and Mines (1990).

REFERENCES

AACSB Standards (2000). Business accreditation standards. Available: http://www.aacsb.edu/accreditation/business/BusinessStandards2000.pdf

Adamski, J. J., K. T. Finnegan & C. Hommel. (2001). New Perspectives on Microsoft Access 2000--Comprehensive. Cambridge, MA: Course Technology.

Arnold, M.J. (1998). An empirical taxonomy of student expectations of marketing internship programs. Journal of Marketing Education, 20(2), 85-93.

Atwong, C. & P.l S. Hugstad. (1997). Internet technology and the future of marketing education. Journal of Marketing Education, 19(3), 44-55.

Bagozzi, R. P. (1975). Marketing as exchange. Journal of Marketing, 39 (October): 32-39.

Benbunan-Fich, R., H. R. Lozada, S. Pirog, R. Priluck & J. Wisenblit. (2001). Integrating information technology into the marketing curriculum: a pragmatic paradigm. Journal of Marketing Education, 23(1), 5-15.

Butler, D.l D. & K. Straughn-Mizerski. (1998). Required and elective marketing courses: Hhow far have we come in twenty years? Marketing Education Review, .8 (3), 35-42.

Castleberry, S. B. (2001). Using secondary data in marketing research: a project that melds web and off-web sources. Journal of Marketing Education, 23(3), 195-203.

Catterall, M. & W. Clarke. (2000). Improving the interface between the profession and the university. Journal of the Market Research Society, 42(1), 3-15.

Davis, R., S. Misra & S. Van Auken. (2000). Relating pedagogical preference of marketing seniors and alumni to attitude toward the major. Journal of Marketing Education, 22(2), 147-154.

Floyd, C.J. & M. E. Gordon. (1998). What skills are most important? A comparison of employer, student, and staff perceptions. Journal of Marketing Education, 20(2), 103-109.

Gandhi, N. & C. D. Bodkin. (1996). Marketing information systems: initiating a dialogue for cross disciplinary courses. Marketing Education Review, 6(2), 11-19.

Gault, J., J. Redington & T. Schlager. (2000). Undergraduate business internships and career success: are they related? Journal of Marketing Education, 22(1), 45-53.

Graeff, T.R. (1998). Writing behavioral learning objectives for marketing courses: meeting the challenge of AACSB outcomes assessment. Marketing Education Review, 8(1), 13-25.

Heckman, J. (1999). Everybody's teaching marketing these days. Marketing News, 33(22), 4.

Hill, R. P (1997). The future of business education's functional areas. Marketing Educator, 16 (Winter): 1, 7.

Hu, S. (2000). Leverage technology to achieve your goals. Marketing News, 34(4), 19.

Hudson, L. A. & J. L. Ozanne. (1988). Alternative ways of seeking knowledge in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(1), 508-520.

King, P., P. Wood & R. Mines. (1990). Critical thinking among college and graduate students. The Higher Review of Education, 13(2), 167-186.

Koch, A. J. (1997). Marketing curriculum: designing its new logic and structure. Journal of Marketing Education, 19(3), 2-16.

Lamb, Jr., C. W., S. H. Shipp & W. C. Moncrief III. (1995). Integrating skills and content knowledge in the marketing curriculum. Journal of Marketing Education, 17(2), 10-19.

LaBarbera, P. A. & J. S. Simonoff. (1999). Toward enhancing the quality and quantity of marketing majors. Journal of Marketing Education, 21(1), 4-13.

Lamont, L. M. & K. Friedman. (1997). Meeting the challenges to undergraduate marketing education. Journal of Marketing Education, 19(2), 17-30.

Marshall, K. P. (1996). Integrating marketing information systems into conventional marketing research courses: A four-module approach. Journal of Marketing Education, 18(1), 21-36.

McCorkle, D. E., J. F. Alexander & J. Reardon. (2001). Integrating business technology and marketing education: enhancing the diffusion process through technology champions. Journal of Marketing Education, 23 (1), 16-24.

McKim, R. (1999). Information: the newest currency. Target Marketing, 22(7), 36-37.

Moon, M. A. (1999). MBA marketing education in the 21st century: the challenges from technology. Marketing Education Review. 9(2), 1-5.

Nonis, S. & A. & G. I. Hudson. (1999). The second course in business statistics and its role in undergraduate marketing education. Journal of Marketing Education, 21(3), 232-241.

Norusis, M. J. (2000). SPSS 10.0 Guide to Data Analysis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Palmquist, J. & L. Ketola. (1999). Turning data into knowledge. Marketing Research, 11(2), 28-32.

Pharr, S. & L. J. Morris. (1997). The fourth generation marketing curriculum: Meeting AACSB's guidelines. Journal of Marketing Education, 19(3), 31-43.

Rifkin, J. (1995). The end of work: The decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Salkind, N. J. (2000). Statistics for People Who (They Think) Hate Statistics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Siegel, C. F. (2000). Introducing marketing students to business intelligence using project-based learning on the world wide web. Journal of Marketing Education, 22(2), 90-98.

Sherry, Jr., J.F. (1991). Postmodern alternatives: the interpretive turn in consumer research," in Handbook of Consumer Behavior, eds. Thomas Robertson and Harold Kassarjian, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Shuptrine, F. K. & J. F. Willenborg. (1998). Job experiences of marketing graduates--implications for marketing education. Marketing Education Review, 8(1), 1-11.

Smart, D. T., C. Tomkovick, E. Jones & A.l Menon. (1999). Undergraduate marketing education in the 21st century: views from three institutions. Marketing Education Review, 9(1), 1-9.

Smart, D. T., C. A. Kelley & J. S. Conant. (1999). Marketing education in the year 2000: changes observed and challenges anticipated. Journal of Marketing Education, 21(3), 206-216.

Solomon, M. R. (1999). Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being, 4th edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Stearns, J. M. & C. T. Crespy. (1995). Learning hierarchies and the marketing curriculum: A proposal for a second course in marketing. Journal of Marketing Education, 17(2), 20-32.

Sterngold, A. H. & J. M. Hurlbert. (1998). Information literacy and the marketing curriculum: A multidimensional definition and practical application. Journal of Marketing Education, 20(3), 244-249.

Val Larsen, James Madison University

Angela D'Auria Stanton, James Madison University

Newell D. Wright, James Madison University

Exhibit 1

Application of Three Stage Learning Hierarchy in a
University's Marketing Curriculum

 King, Wood, and Mines Example of Application in
 (1990) Three Stage a University's Marketing
 Learning Hierarchy, as Program Curriculum
 used by Stearns and Crespy
 (1995)

Stage 1 Reflects the assumption Principles of Marketing:
 that knowledge is either Introduction to marketing
 gained by direct personal frameworks, concepts and
 observation or transmitted practices through lecture
 from an authority figure. and discussion
 Such knowledge is assumed
 to be absolutely correct
 and certain.

Stage 2 Reflects the assumption Market Database
 that knowledge is gained Development:
 through evaluating the Extensive hands-on
 available evidence and laboratory training in the
 that, although judgments use of database and
 may involve some personal statistical software tools
 and often idiosyncratic in business decision
 evaluation of data, making. Problems and
 certain concepts aid the procedures tend to be
 decision makers in their well defined.
 evaluations.

Stage 3 Represents the most Survey Research, Data
 advanced set of assumptions Mining, Strategic Internet
 that are used in solving Marketing, Marketing
 ill-structured problems. Management
 This stage reflects the Application of research
 assumption that methods in a consultative
 interpretations must be or otherwise unstructured
 grounded in data and, more real world environment.
 importantly, that the Students apply concepts and
 interpretations themselves tools learned at Stages 1
 must be evaluated to and 2 to define and solve
 determine the truth-value unstructured problems.
 of a knowledge claim,
 using such criteria as
 conceptual soundness,
 degree of fit with the
 data, and parsimony.

Exhibit 3

Topics Covered in the Market Database Development Course

Week Topics Covered

1 Course Introduction--includes course overview, introduction
 to marketing information systems, introduction to use of
 databases in marketing, and review of market segmentation

 Database Technology Component

2 Conceptual Overview--includes database planning and design,
 normalization of tables and introduction to Microsoft Access

2-3 Development, Modification and Manipulation of Tables--includes
 creation of tables, understanding of table formats and
 properties, entering data into tables, modification of
 existing tables, and manipulation of data in tables

3 Relationships--includes understanding primary versus foreign
 keys, types of relationships in a database, enforcing
 referential integrity, and understanding join types

4-6 Querying the Database--includes development of select queries,
 crosstab queries, parameter queries, action queries, and
 introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL)

7-8 Data Output Mechanisms--includes developing forms, creating
 reports and development of data access pages

 Statistical Analysis Component

9-10 Conceptual Overview--includes measurement issues,
 understanding data types (nominal, ordinal, interval and
 ratio), and choosing the appropriate analytical technique

11 Introduction to SPSS--includes data and variable views,
 importing files from an Access database to SPSS, data
 transformations, and frequencies and descriptive statistics

12-14 Statistical Significance and Testing--includes sampling,
 hypothesis testing, understanding statistical significance,
 statistical significance and managerial relevance, parametric
 tests (including t-tests and ANOVA), non-parametric tests
 (such as chi-square, Kruskal Wallis, etc.), and within and
 between subject designs

15 Course Conclusion--includes integrating the database
 technology and statistical analysis components of the course
 in a market segmentation framework

Exhibit 4

A Sampling of Assignments Used in the Course

Database Assignments

* Database Normalization Assignment--In this assignment, students are
provided with data elements and asked to produce a series of normalized
tables that are grouped in functionality and are minimally redundant.

* Select Query Assignment--In this assignment, students develop simple
select queries using various criteria, sorting and grouping of data,
and use aggregate functions.

* Action Query Assignment--In this assignment, students develop
make-table, update, append and delete queries.

* Forms Assignment--In this assignment, students create forms to view
data, as well as update data directly in tables.

Statistical Analysis Assignments

* Choosing the Right Analytical Technique Assignment--In this
assignment, students are provided word problems and must choose the
appropriate level of measurement and the analytical technique that is
appropriate for the situation described.

* Manipulating Data and Descriptive Statistics--In this assignment,
students use SPSS to compute and recode variables, as well as run
frequencies and descriptive statistics. The students must also be able
to correctly interpret the resulting SPSS output

* Hypothesis Testing Using T-Tests--In this assignment, students must
review the hypothesis provided and choose the appropriate t-test
(one-sample, paired sample, independent samples), run the test,
interpret the output and make the appropriate determination of the
hypothesis.

Exhibit 5

A Summary of Lessons Learned (So Far)

Issue Problem Solution(s)

Faculty Staffing Marketing faculty * Provide training in
 expertise and/or database technology
 experience in database to existing faculty
 technology is limited
 * Extensive sharing
 of course materials

 * Recruit faculty who
 are willing to learn
 database software

Multiple Sections Ensure that there is * Instructor meetings
and Instructors consistency across
 sections/instructors * Extensive sharing
 of course ideas,
 materials and
 databases.

Textbook Lack of a suitable * Use two textbooks,
Materials textbook that one for Access and one
 integrates database for statistical
 management and analysis/SPSS
 statistical analysis
 * Faculty emphasize
 integration more
 heavily

 * Development of
 databases that can be
 used in both portions
 of the course

Computer Lab The course needs to be * Classes have been
Resources taught in a computer moved to computer lab
 lab in order to meet
 the required pedagogy.