Effective Use of Discovery Learning to Improve Understanding of Factors That Affect Quality

Undergraduate business majors are required to take a course in operations management. In this course, a great deal of emphasis is put on developing a good understanding of quality because this is likely to be the only required course that covers this important topic. Quality of output exhibits a great deal of variation. To produce high quality on a sustained basis, sources of variation in quality need to be identified and eliminated or adjusted. A discovery learning activity has been developed and used for over 10 years to help students identify the different kinds of reasons why there is variation in quality of output. Students have greater ownership of such knowledge because they discovered the knowledge. Six pedagogical tips and guidelines are presented to assist instructors improve odds of success in using this effective but difficult pedagogical tool.