DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS FOR TEACHING RETAIL MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

Scope of Study. The research was conducted to develop and evaluate computer simulations for teaching selected retail store management concepts. The specific objectives of the study were to identify uses of the computer and computer-generated information in retail store management; develop computer simulations representative of existing computer-assisted retail store management applications; and evaluate the computer simulations in an instructional situation.; A survey was conducted to identify computer uses in retail store management. Computer simulations were developed to be representative of current computer uses in retailing. Simulations were developed on the topics of six-month planning and unit and dollar control. The simulations were evaluated. An experiment using a 2 x 2 factorial design was conducted. The independent variables were teaching method (computer simulation vs. case study) and course (clothing, textiles and merchandising vs. marketing). The dependent variables were pretest, posttest and attitude scale scores.; Findings and Conclusions. The results of the study indicated that cognitive learning did not differ based on teaching method. Student responses to the attitude scale items varied according to the topic covered; unit and dollar control or six-month planning. In general, the results indicated that the unit and dollar control computer simulation received more favorable ratings by the clothing, textiles and merchandising students than did the six-month planning computer simulation. The marketing students tended to rate the computer simulation and the case study similarly in both experiments.