ABSTRACT
Business educators face the challenge of preparing a diverse population of students to meet the demands of a rapidly changing business environment. In fact, business schools are often criticized for failing to adequately prepare students and, in times of economic difficulty, are even blamed for sending ill-prepared students into the business world (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005). On a day-to-day basis, business educators, like all other teachers, struggle to find ways to reach students, enable them to succeed, and to improve learning outcomes. In this chapter, I propose a framework for applying cognitive styles research to a set of four specific issues facing business educators. Following the advice of Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Zhang (2008), this approach seeks to connect theory and empirical research to the practice of education. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates one way that the style paradigm can be used to inform teaching and learning.
