Reality- Based Learning: How to get Business Students Down to Business

Reality-Based Learning, RBL, is a teacher-driven initiative introducing the core business administration subjects to first-year business students by means of making business plans. This paper empirically accounts for the development of RBL over three years. RBL is scrutinized for pros and cons by a proposed education development framework. When the educational change is dissected and related to prevailing teaching contexts, areas prone to further development are identified. Results
indicate that RBL has been developed by a few teachers, both in spite of and due to the lack of longterm pedagogical strategy and development incentives at the department and school levels. This paper concludes with the suggestion that the education development framework is apt for both ex ante design stages and ex-post evaluation of course parts, courses and entire programs.