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The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 409e428
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The International Journal of Management Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme
Inuence of personality and motivation on case method

teaching
s Bayona*, Delio Ignacio Castan
Jaime Andre ~ eda
, Colombia
Business Department, Ponticia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The purpose of this study was to examine the inuence of the individual characteristics of
Received 4 July 2016 students and teachers in the effectiveness of the case method in a sample of Colombian
Received in revised form 8 May 2017 business students. The results from two studies indicated that the case method is as
Accepted 11 July 2017
effective as the lecture method in respect of learning outcomes (i.e. declarative knowledge
and situation analysis) and is related to the higher satisfaction of students (i.e. pedagogic
strategies and the relation between students and the professor); however, its effects can be
Keywords:
mediated and moderated by some personality traits of the teachers and students
Case method
Personality
(conscientiousness, openness to experience, and extroversion) and by the students
Motivation motivation (social motivation). Case method is effective for promoting educational out-
Teacher-student interaction comes, and its usage is not just recommended for senior students but, as we have found, it
Colombia is also recommended for junior students who can improve both their declarative knowl-
edge and situation analysis skills with this method.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The case method (CM) was developed in the rst half of the twentieth century. Since the 1970s it has quickly spread across
North American business schools and is now the most widely recognized and accepted learning method in MBA programmes.
Because of its popularity, several studies have investigated the effectiveness of the method, and they have generally reported
that the CM improves educational outcomes1 (Booth, 2000; Noblitt, Vance, & DePoy Smith, 2010; Sanders-Smith, Smith-
Bonahue, & Soutullo, 2016; Watson & Sutton, 2012; Yadav, Lundeberg, & DeSchryver, 2007), but these positive results are
limited by four shortcomings: (a) CM studies generally focus only on one protagonist of the teaching-learning process (i.e.
either teachers or students); (b) most studies do not consider individual characteristics, such as personality, motivation or
attitudes, in their analyses (e.g. Watson & Sutton, 2012); (c) the studies generally focus on single learning indicators (e.g. only
oral communication or class satisfaction); and (d) most research on the CM has been conducted in North American uni-
versities with few reports in other cultural contexts (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001). Therefore, in this study we addressed these
limitations by examining the effectiveness of the CM in a sample of Colombian business students, where we examined the
inuence of personality, motivation and teacher-student interaction on different educational outcomes and how those
personal characteristics (from both teachers and students) can inuence teaching.
* Corresponding author. Ponticia Universidad Javeriana, Departamento de Administracio n de Empresas, Cra. 7a N 40B-36, Piso 4 Edicio Jorge Hoyos
V
asquez, S.J., Bogot
a, Colombia.
E-mail address: jaime.bayona@javeriana.edu.co (J.A. Bayona).
1
In this article, we dened educational outcomes as detailed descriptions of what students must be able to do or know at the end of a course.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2017.07.002
1472-8117/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
410 ~ eda / The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 409e428
J.A. Bayona, D.I. Castan
The remainder of our article is structured as follows. The ensuing section presents the main characteristics of the CM in
business education and the next section develops hypotheses about CM effectiveness and the inuence of the personal
characteristics of teachers and students on such effectiveness. We then explain the methodology and present the empirical
data used for testing the hypotheses. Finally, the results of the empirical analysis are discussed and their implications for both
practice and research are presented.
1.1. Learning methods in business education
The problems the students of today face in the classroom are not necessarily similar to those they encounter in their
working life, where the problems are far more complex, unstructured and have conicting objectives, and they may occur in a
variety of shapes (Yadav, Shaver, & Meckl, 2010). Because of this, in the last few decades the approaches to teaching have
changed (Gibbs, 2013b), from those orientated only to the content, or teacher-centred, to approaches orientated to the
learning, or student-centred (Kember, 1997). Experiential learning is an example. This theory describes how experience is
transformed into learning through a cycle of experiencing, reecting, thinking and acting (Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Knowledge is
created as a student endures a transformational experience as opposed to reading about it in a textbook or listening to a
lecture (Kolb, 1984).
Teacher-centred methods are characterized by a verbal transmission of content from the teacher to the student. With these
methods the knowing agent is the teacher, who transmits knowledge to the students, and the memorization of content is
encouraged. Some research states that when students have no experience with a topic teacher-centred methods can
contribute to the acquisition of the required knowledge and the connection between the concepts (Dochy, Segers, Van den
Bossche, & Gijbels, 2003), especially in introductory courses (Nadkarni, 2003). These methods favour the memorization of
knowledge that can be evaluated with relative simplicity in educational settings, but they have shortcomings in the transfer
when applied to learning environments (Tynj al
a, 1999).
On the other side, student-centred methods are focused on collaborative dialogue processes (instructor-student and
student-student). Specically, the business CM mimics or simulates a real situation that has three characteristics: 1) it covers
a topic or topics signicant to the business context, 2) it provides sufcient information on which to base conclusions, and 3) it
provides no denitive conclusions (Ellet, 2007). The CM is dened as the depiction (in words or video) of a situation, spe-
cically written for development purposes, which exists or existed within an organization. Learners read (or watch on video/
lm) and analyze what has happened (in the case). Subsequently they present, debate, defend, discuss and critique the
analysis, with turors [sic] and fellow learners, in a variety of ways, such as interaction in pairs, groups or full plenary sessions
(Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001, p. 9). Although CM have some common points with other teaching methods as the experiential
learning theory (Gibbs, 2013a), and despite being born within an academic setting, did not respond to a specic theoretical
orientation, and its development has been mostly intuitive with not much empirical research about the direct effects of this
method (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001).
1.2. Case method effects
Different researchers have reported a wide variety of positive effects of the CM on various educational outcomes. These
include the improvement of higher thinking skills (Bergland, Lundeberg, & Klyczek, 2006; Carlson & Schodt, 1995; Dori, Tal, &
Tsaushu, 2003), deeper learning (Boyce, Williams, Kelly, & Yee, 2001), the learning of core competencies (Weil, Oyelere, &
Rainsbury, 2004), improvement of oral communication (Noblitt, Vance, & Smith, 2010), motivation to learn information
and apply the knowledge learned to unknown problems (Bo cker, 1987), the ability to ask questions and diagnose situations,
and the ability to integrate theory with practice and decision making (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001).
However, other lines of research state that depending on the course's educational objective, some teaching methods can
be more or less effective (Anderson et al., 2001), for example, Elmore have stated that conventional pedagogy (lecture
method), has an emphasis on factual information, but the objective of CM is to construct knowledge, and students do so by
engaging, with other students and with the teacher, in a process of inquiry, critical discourse, and problem solving (Elmore,
1991, p. xii). Ellet (2007) also highlight that memorization is the primary skill of the lecture model, and inference is the
primary skill of the case model, and Dooley and Skinner (1977) have stated that the CM is not appropriate for the
improvement of all educational outcomes; if the course's learning objective is limited to acquiring knowledge or recalling
concepts (declarative knowledge), the effectiveness of the CM will be low, and other methods (e.g. traditional lectures) will
outperform the CM as lecture methods promote the memorization of facts, rules, relations and concepts in a task domain. On
the other hand, the CM will outperform a traditional lecture method when the course's educational objective is related to the
analysis of different scenarios and decision making (procedural knowledge), as the main objective of the CM is the discussion
of the steps, procedures, sequences and actions required to solve a managerial problem. Evidence of this reasoning have been
reported in a sample of MBA students by Othman, Poon, and Ho (2012), whom found that lecture method is more efcient
than CM for the learning of declarative knowledge; on the other hand, Yoo and Park (2014) in a sample of graduate nurses
reported that CM is more effective for the improvement of problem solving than the lecture method. Because of these results
we expected that students exposed to the CM would perform better on situation analysis than those students who are
exposed to a lecture method. In addition, we expected that students exposed to a traditional lecture method would perform
better on declarative knowledge than those students exposed to the CM.
~ eda / The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 409e428
J.A. Bayona, D.I. Castan 411
Hypothesis 1a. Students under the CM condition will perform better on situation analysis than students under the lecture
condition.
Hypothesis 1b. Students under the lecture condition will perform better on declarative knowledge than students under the CM
condition.
In addition to knowledge acquisition (declarative and procedural), students satisfaction with the CM has been noted as
another variable of major interest in the CM literature, as some research reports that students who are exposed to the CM are
more satised with their class than students that are exposed to other teacher-centred methods (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001;
Shieh, Lyu, & Cheng, 2012; Stjernquist & Crang-Svalenius, 2007). This is because CM students are more engaged with their
classes, teachers and classmates (Yadav et al., 2010). Accordingly, we expected that students exposed to the CM would be
more satised with the class than students who are exposed to the lecture method.
Hypothesis 2. Students under the CM condition will be more satised with their class than students under the lecture condition.
1.3. Individual characteristics
As we have seen, although there is a growing body of research on the effectiveness of the CM, research on the inuence of
the individual characteristics on the CM is scarce and some authors have called for more research on specic processes that
could be inuencing the learning associated with the CM (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001). Taking this into account and the
meta-analytical evidence about the positive relation between personality and academic performance (Poropat, 2009) and
motivation and academic performance (Liu, Bridgeman, & Adler, 2012), we consider personality and motivation to be two
variables that can inuence CM effectiveness. In this section, we present the hypotheses related to these variables.
1.3.1. Personality
Research on the relation between personality traits and academic performance is quite robust. Meta-analytic evidence
indicates positive relations between academic performance and three personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness
and openness to experience. Noftle and Robins (2007) found that conscientiousness is highly correlated with academic
performance (college GPA) across different personality inventories: BFI (r 0.21), NEO-FII (r 0.14), and HEXACO (r 0.19).
However, they did not nd signicant results for agreeableness or openness. Poropat (2009) conrmed these results; he
reported that for college students, the correlations for these three traits were signicant, but low, except for conscien-
tiousness (r 0.47). Finally, Vedel (2014) reported that conscientiousness (r 0.26), agreeableness (r .o8) and openness
(r 0.07) were all related to academic performance (GPA) in tertiary education. These results, although signicant, are not
completely similar and could reect a more complex relation between personality traits and academic performance. Because
of this, we expected that agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness would affect the relation between the teaching
method and performance in terms of educational outcomes.
Hypothesis 3. Agreeableness (H3a), Conscientiousness (H3b) and Openness to Experience (H3c) will affect positively the relation
between the teaching method and performance in terms of educational outcomes.
However, although meta-analytical evidence has shown that extroversion is not signicantly related to educational
outcomes, because the goal of case discussions is to generate a higher level of active participation, which in turn is expected
to result in a higher level of objective learning (Desiraju & Gopinath, 2001, p. 397), it is likely that those students who can
initiate and maintain social interaction more uently can have a better level of academic performance in this context. More
precisely, greater social participation is related to higher levels of extroversion, as initiating and maintaining social interaction
is reported to be easier for those with high extroversion (Srivastava, Angelo, & Vallereux, 2008). Because of this, we expected
that teacher-student interaction (TSI) would mediate the relation between extroversion and participation grades.
In addition, CM discussion implies a great amount of previous work from the student, as they need to be able to analyze a
case, to give it meaning in relation with its key issues or questions that have been asked about it. The goal is to come to
conclusions congruent with the reality of the case, taking into account its gaps and uncertainties (Ellet, 2007, p. 6). Because
individuals high in conscientiousness tend to be careful, thorough, responsible, organized and scrupulous, we expected that
TSI would mediate the relation between conscientiousness and participation grades.
Hypothesis 4. Teacher-student interaction will mediate the relation between (a) extroversion, (b) conscientiousness and
participation grades.
1.3.2. Motivation
Another variable that is commonly related to academic performance is motivation. Some authors have reported positive
relations between motivation levels and test scores (Liu et al., 2012), academic performance (Zhou, 2015), critical thinking
(Pintrich & de Groot, 1990) and adaptive learning strategies (Maehr & Meyer, 1997). Brten and Ferguson (2015, p. 13) found
that stronger beliefs in theory-based sources of knowledge were related to higher motivation to learn from theoretically-
oriented coursework and stronger beliefs in practically-derived sources were related to higher motivation to learn from
teaching practice.
Although there are many motivational theories applied to the educational environment, Maehr's personal investment
theory (Maehr & Meyer, 1997) is relevant in investigations into how individuals of varying social and cultural backgrounds
relate to differing achievement situations such as schooling (McInerney, 2012, p. 637). Personal investment theory suggests
that all persons possess certain resources. In particular, they all have time, a degree of energy, as well as knowledge and skills
that they bring to each situation (Maehr & Meyer, 1997, p. 373). From this theory, two main motivational goals are important
for the CM: mastery and social orientation. Mastery goal orientation is related to internal control beliefs and these beliefs are
demonstrated by the students' personal effort, self-efcacy beliefs and perceptions of domain interest. Students who
appreciate a learning task will nd it meaningful and worthwhile and will try to get the intended benets from it (Brophy,
2008). On the other hand, social goal orientation is based on the desire to please one's parents, to work in a peer group or
to help other students (McInerney, 2012), a behaviour that is important in the CM discussion process.
Because the CM requires an important amount of preparation from the students and a substantial amount of social
interaction with both the teacher and classmates, we expected that mastery goal orientation (mastery motivation) and social
goal orientation (social motivation) would positively affect the relation between the CM and performance in declarative
knowledge, situation analysis and course satisfaction.
Hypothesis 5. Mastery motivation will positively affect the relation between the teaching method and performance in respect of
(a) declarative knowledge, (b) situation analysis and (c) course satisfaction.
Hypothesis 6. Social motivation will positively affect the relation between the teaching method and perrmance in respect of (a)
declarative knowledge, (b) situation analysis and (c) course satisfaction.
1.4. Overview of the present research
In our present research, we want to determine the effects of the CM on educational outcomes (declarative knowledge and
situation analysis) and class satisfaction and to determine the role of some personal variables in respect of that relation. We
conducted two studies to investigate how teacher and students characteristics inuence CM effectiveness. The studies were
conducted in Colombia, one of the major economies in the Latin American and Caribbean region. Colombia is a country with
49 million of people, located in South America. The quality of education in the country is heterogeneous; in fact, with in-
formation from 2015, only 16% of the higher education institutions had high quality accreditation and the enrolment coverage
in programs of those organizations was 31% (Melo-Becerra, Ramos-Forero, & Hern andez-Santamara, 2017). The use of CM is
frequent in MBA programs in Colombia, but rarely utilized in undergraduate business administration classes, where lecturing
is the main teaching method.
Study 1 used a quasi-experimental design to examine the effect of the CM in a group of undergraduate business
administration students and controlled the different variables of personality, motivation, satisfaction and teacher-student
interaction. Study 2 used a sample of business administration teachers to expand the analysis of individual characteristics
from students to teachers; we studied their personality in order to determine the inuence of this characteristic on students
perceptions of CM effectiveness.
2. Study 1
Study 1 was designed to test the effect of the CM on educational outcomes and to determine the impact of personality and
motivation on that relation.
2.1. Method
The hypotheses were tested using a quasi-experimental design with four groups, two using the CM and two using a lecture
method (LM) as control groups.
2.1.1. Participants
A total of 107 undergraduate students from a private university in Bogota , Colombia participated in the study
(female 47%) with a mean age of 19.5 (SD 1.87). Most of the students were from the business administration programme
(80%), but there were others also from engineering, accounting, economics and communication (20%). Students were clas-
sied in four groups: case method 1 (CM1, n 19), case method 2 (CM2, n 29), lecture method 1 (LM1, n 24) and lecture
method 2 (LM2, n 35). The group composition was established several weeks before any contact was made with the
students (students register in a certain course and section depending on their schedule). The complete owchart of partic-
ipants can be seen in Fig. 1.
2.1.2. Intervention and procedures

The intervention took place over 17 weeks; students were enrolled in one of the four organizational behaviour courses
offered by the business administration department. In the CM groups (CM1 and CM2) all sessions were taught using this
methodology, while in the LM groups (LM1 and LM2) all classes were taught using a lecture methodology (see Section 2.1.2.1).
Fig. 1. Flowchart of participants for study 1.
Each author of this article orientated one CM group and one LM group. All groups followed a 17 week programme with 14
organizational behaviour topics. The duration of each class was around 75 min, all classes were in the afternoon, and the
classrooms were of the same physical characteristics in the same building. The same learning objectives were stated for both
conditions, with the only difference between the groups being the teaching methodology.
2.1.2.1. Teaching method. In the LM groups, lectures were the only method of teaching, there were seldom any collaborative
approaches to learning, and students were dependent upon their teachers to provide answers to their questions. Students
opinions were not sought. Robbins & Judge's Organizational Behaviour was employed as the textbook (Robbins & Judge, 2009).
All students were required to read one chapter of the book in advance for each topic, and during the class session teachers
presented the topic in depth using PowerPoint slides. The slides for both the LM groups were the same and the professors
followed the same class script. In the LM groups, no participation or dialogue with the students was encouraged; however,
when a student asked a question it was answered by the teacher. Table 1 presents the list of chapters used during the study.
All sessions were videotaped.
In the CM groups, there was an extensive use of dialogue, students participated in discussions, and the views of students
were sought and acted upon in relation to the case and subject of the day. The students were encouraged to share their ideas
with their peers. The directives for the CM were taken from the Harvard Business School2 methodology (Barnes, Christensen,
& Hansen, 1994; Christensen, Garvin, & Sweet, 1991; Ellet, 2007). This specic methodology followed ve steps: (a) a single
business case was given in advance to the students (through the university online system); (b) students were required to read
2
Both teachers took formal seminars on CM dynamics at Harvard Business School.
Table 1
Preparatory material for each class.
Week Topic Book chapter (LM groups)a Case (CM groups)

1 Pretest No mandatory reading
2 Personality and values Chapter 4 Personality and Values A learning team drama in one act
3 Perception and decision Chapter 5 Perception and Individual Decision Dave Armstrong (A)* & Dave Armstrong (B)*
making Making
4 Emotions and moods Chapter 8 Emotions and Moods Low ve
5 Attitudes Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Treadway Tire Company: Job dissatisfaction and high turnover at
the Lima plant*
6 Test 1 No mandatory reading
7 Motivation 1 Chapter 6 Motivation Concepts Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales force incentives (A)
8 Motivation 2 Chapter 7: From Concepts to Applications Sloan & Harrison: Non-equity partner discontent*
9 Groups Chapter 9: Foundations of Group Behaviour The overhead reduction task force
10 Work teams Chapter 10: Understanding Work Teams Medysis Corp: The IntensCare product development team
11 Leadership 1 Chapter 12: Basic Approaches to Leadership Cheung Yan: China's paper queen
13 Leadership 2 Chapter 13: Contemporary Issues in Leadership King Jewels: Ethical leadership in practice
14 Conict and negotiation Chapter 15: Conict and Negotiation Hamilton real estate*
15 Organizational culture Chapter 17: Organizational Culture Deloitte & Touche (A): A hole in the pipeline*
16 Organizational change Chapter 19: Organizational Change and Stress Deloitte & Touche (B): Changing the workplace
Management
Note: aAll chapters are from the Spanish edition of the Robbins & Judge book Organizational Behaviour, 13th edition, (Robbins & Judge, 2009). *The Spanish
version of this case was employed.
the case prior to the class and were guided by key questions given in advance; (c) during the class session the students
discussed the case from different points that were orientated by the instructor; (d) the teacher moderated the discussion
process; and (e) the instructor followed the teaching notes that accompanied the case. The teaching notes were exclusive to
the teacher and stated different questions and scenarios that the case is intended to cover. All the cases were acquired from
the Harvard Business School Publishing database. Both authors followed the teaching notes and the script specied in the
notes. Table 1 presents the list of cases used during the study. The selection of cases followed a case map for Robbins & Judge's
Organizational Behaviour textbook (Harvard Business Publishing, n.d.). All sessions were videotaped.
2.1.3. Ethical considerations and manipulation check

During the rst session, the nature of the study was explained to each participant and each of them signed a written
informed consent; none of the students refused to participate in the study. However, nine students asked to change section in
order to enrol in a section with their preferred teaching method (the change option was stated during the rst session in order
to facilitate student participation in the study). A manipulation check was assessed through the number of interactions
between the teacher and students. We chose this index because the CM is based on a constant dialogue between the teacher
and students and the LM is based on the sole intervention of the teacher. The procedure we used to operationalize the
teacher-student interaction is explained in Section 2.1.4.5.
2.1.4. Measures
There were six measurements in this study: educational outcomes, satisfaction, motivation, personality, teacher-student
interaction and participation grades.
2.1.4.1. Educational outcomes. Two educational outcomes were assessed: declarative knowledge and situation analysis. These
outcomes were measured using open questions in four different moments (Fig. 1). Each test included six questions, three that
asked for the reproduction of concepts or declarative knowledge (e.g. what is work motivation?) and three that focused on
situation analysis (e.g. identify and explain which group properties should be improved in the group presented in the case).
Each question represented a course learning objective and they were tested for content validity with two instructors not
involved in the research. Students' answers were evaluated by two organizational behaviour instructors not involved in the
research who counted with rubrics provided to them that indicated the suggested answers to each question. All questions on
tests 1, 2 and 3 counted towards the students' course GPA. Inter-rater agreement was calculated using Kendall's Tau-b. This
statistic was employed rather than Cohen's kappa due to the nature of the outcome variable (a continuous evaluation with
ve points from 1 to 5). The average Kendall's Tau-b for the pretest was 0.32; test 1 0.64, test 2 0.60, and test 3 0.73.
2.1.4.2. Satisfaction. Satisfaction was measured using a standard survey on course assessment employed by the university. The
survey contained 22 items that assessed four different types of class satisfaction: the teacher's pedagogical strategies, the
teacher's mastery of the course content, teacher-student relation, and the assessment methodology. A 6-point Likert scale was
used ranging from 1 to 6. In our dataset, the Cronbach's a for the satisfaction survey was 0.90.
2.1.4.3. Motivation. Motivation was measured using a Spanish adaptation of the Inventory of School Motivation [ISM]
(McInerney & Ali, 2006). The original ISM contained 34 items that assesses four different types of school goal orientation:
mastery, performance, social and extrinsic. The adaptation of the ISM into Spanish was accomplished through the translation
back-translation procedure recommended by Brislin (1980). Some specic changes from the original questionnaire were
introduced in the Spanish adaptation in order to t our population characteristics (e.g. change wording of school to uni-
versity). We used nine items to evaluate mastery motivation (e.g. I try harder with interesting work) and eight items to
evaluate social motivation (e.g. I like to help other students do well at university). A 5-point Likert scale was used ranging
from 1 (nothing important) to 5 (extremely important). In our dataset, the Cronbach's a was 0.69 for mastery motivation and
0.81 for social motivation.
2.1.4.4. Personality. Personality was measured using the Spanish online commercial version of the Big Five Questionnaire
[BFQ] (Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Borgogni, 1993). The BFQ was developed to assess the Big Five factors of personality: extra-
version/energy, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. For each of the 132 items in the questionnaire,
the respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the personal relevance of the item on a 5-point scale
ranging from complete disagreement (1 very false for me) to complete agreement (5 very true for me).
2.1.4.5. Teacher-student interaction. The level of teacher-student interaction was assessed through behavioural observation.
Each class, excluding the test classes, was video recorded using a camcorder3 and it was later codied using the OBSERVER XT
10.0 software. Six behaviours were the focus of this codication: (a) the student's answer to the teacher's question; (b) the
student's question to the teacher; (c) the student-to-teacher comment (not initiated in a question); (d) the student's answer
to another student's question; (e) the question from a student to another student; and (f) the student-to-student comment
(not initiated in a question).4 All six behaviours were collapsed into one single index of interaction: Teacher-student Interaction
(TSI). The codication process was performed by one student who was trained in the operationalization process and software
use. A time frame of 10 min was selected for the observation process (i.e. codication from 00:00 to 10:00, from 20:00 to
30:00 and so on).
2.1.4.6. Participation grades. For each CM class, a 1 to 5 grade was established by the instructor: 1 - silence, no participation; 2 -
insufcient, cold call; 3 - summary intervention; 4 - sufcient, answer a question; 5 - outstanding, change discussion di-
rection. This grade system was taken from Erskine, Leenders, and Mauffette-Leenders (2003).
2.1.4.7. Control variables. We controlled the groups for: (a) the instructor (with a balanced design) and (b) current academic
performance in the university (GPA).
2.1.5. Analysis strategy

To test our hypotheses related to the effect of the CM on educational outcomes and satisfaction (H1a, H1b and H2), we used
a paired t-test. To test our hypotheses about the effect of personality and motivation on learning outcomes (H3, H5, H6), we
followed the moderation analysis procedure recommended by Andrew Hayes using the PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS (Hayes,
2013). Finally, to test our hypotheses related to personality and teacher-student interaction (H4), we deployed simple
mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS (Hayes, 2013).
2.2. Results
2.2.1. Descriptive analyses

No differences among the groups were detected for the GPA: F(3,102) 0.238, p 0.87 and no differences on learning
outcomes were detected between the teachers for declarative knowledge: t(79) 0.811, p 0.42 or situation analysis:
t(75) 1.333, p 0.19. Also, no differences were detected between the teachers in any of the three tests.
However, in order to verify a possible interaction between an instructor and the teaching methodology, a two-way ANOVA
was performed. The results indicate an interaction between these variables for both declarative knowledge, F(1,77) 22.75,
p 0.01, and situation analysis, F(1,73) 4.26, p 0.05. Additional moderation analysis conrmed these results for both
declarative knowledge, R2 0.202, p 0.001, b 2.093, se 0.507, t 4.127, p 0.001, and situation analysis, R2 0.108,
p 0.058, b 1.207, se 0.506, t 2.385, p 0.020. A graphical depiction of these relations can be seen in Fig. 2, where
students under the LM obtained higher results on declarative knowledge when the course was orientated by teacher 0. On the
other hand, students under the CM obtained higher declarative knowledge results when the course was orientated by teacher
3
Sony Handycam HDR-PJ200.
4
Each of these behaviours was operationalized in order to differentiate each set of behaviours. The operationalization scheme for each behaviour is
available from the authors.
Fig. 2. Interaction effect of teacher and teaching method in the prediction of (a) declarative knowledge and (b) situation analysis.
1 (Fig. 2a). The same pattern is presented for situation analysis (Fig. 2b), although with a p 0.10. Because of these results,
further group analyses should be undertaken with particular attention to these issues.
In order to ensure inter-rater agreement on the test results, only those questions with high inter-rater agreement were
considered; that is, only items with a Tau-b bigger than 0.5 were considered. For the pre-test, only one item obtained this level
(declarative), but for tests 1, 2 and 3, all items obtained this level. From this point on, all analyses will include only these items
(19 questions). The correlation matrix for all study variables is in Table 2.
2.2.2. Manipulation check

Our examination of the manipulation check using TSI suggested that participants were sensitive to the teaching method
manipulation, as interaction was higher in the CM groups than in the LM groups: t(77) 6,411, p 0.01.
2.2.3. Hypotheses testing

Hypothesis 1a predicted that the students under the CM condition will perform better on situation analysis than the
students under the LM condition: t(75) 0.05, p 0.96. These results provide no support for hypothesis 1a. Hypothesis 1b
predicted that the students under the LM will perform better on declarative knowledge than the students under the CM
condition: t(79) 0.327, p 0.75. These results provide no support for hypothesis 1b.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that the students under the CM condition will be more satised with the class than the students
under the LM condition. The results indicate that the CM students were more satised with the pedagogic strategies:
t(82) 3.52, p 0.01 and with the relation between the students and the professor: t(83) 3.96, p 0.01. These results
provide partial support for Hypothesis 2.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that Agreeableness (H3a), Conscientiousness (H3b) and Openness to Experience (H3c) will affect
positively the relation between the teaching method and performance in terms of educational outcomes. Our moderation
analyses found no signicant interaction for agreeableness in respect of declarative knowledge or situation analysis (Table 3),
so H3a is not supported. For conscientiousness, our moderation analyses found no signicant interaction for this personality
trait in respect of declarative knowledge or situation analysis (Table 3), so H3b is not supported. For Openness to Experience,
our moderation analyses revealed a signicant interaction role for openness to experience in respect of declarative knowl-
edge: b 0.04, t 2.33, p 0.024, although R2 was not signicant (Table 3). Because of this, we performed additional
moderation analyses for the facets of this trait and found a signicant relation for the openness to culture facet: R2 0.13,
p 0.07; b 0.04, t 2.31, p 0.03; this interaction can be seen in Fig. 3, where the students under the CM perform better
on declarative knowledge when their openness to culture levels are higher. Thus, H3c is partially supported in respect of the
openness to culture facet.
Hypothesis 4 predicted that the level of teacher-student interaction (TSI) will mediate the relation between (a) extro-
version, (b) conscientiousness and participation grades. The results from a simple mediation analysis conducted using or-
dinary least squares path analysis indicated that the TSI does not have an indirect effect between extroversion and case grades
(Table 4), so H4a is not supported. For conscientiousness, the results from a simple mediation analysis indicated that this trait
indirectly inuenced participation grades through its effects on TSI. As can be seen in Table 4 and Fig. 4, the students with high
conscientiousness participate more highly in class (TSI) than those students with low conscientiousness (a 0.297), and
those students with high TSI levels obtain higher participation grades (b 0.043). A bias-corrected bootstrap condence
interval for the indirect effect (ab 0.013) based on 10,000 bootstrap samples was entirely above zero (0.004e0.024). There
was no evidence that conscientiousness inuenced case grades independent of its effect on TSI (c 0.006, p 0.499), so H4b
is fully supported.
H5 predicted that mastery motivation will positively affect the relation between the teaching method and (a) declarative
knowledge, (b) situation analysis and (c) course satisfaction. Although mastery motivation was related to situation analysis,
Table 2
Intercorrelations among study variables.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Personality
1. Agreeableness e
2. Extroversion 0.02 e
3. Conscientiousness 0.12 0.33** e
4. Openness to experience 0.24* 0.42** 0.18 e
Motivation
5. Mastery 0.10 0.12 0.20 0.36** e
6. Social 0.44** 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.17 e
Satisfaction
7. Pedagogy 0.09 0.16 0.06 0.07 0.04 0.04 e
8. Content 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.09 0.58** e
9. Relation 0.19 0.24 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.67** 0.53** e
10. Assessment 0.06 0.22 0.07 0.16 0.02 0.00 0.49** 0.41** 0.59** e
Interaction
11. Teacher-student interaction 0.09 0.16 0.44** 0.21 0.07 0.02 0.28* 0.17 0.30** 0.19 e
Outcomes
12. Declarative knowledge 0.00 0.11 0.21 0.07 0.02 0.02 0.10 0.09 0.06 0.05 0.03 e
13. Situation analysis 0.03 0.12 0.21 0.14 0.34* 0.14 0.03 0.03 0.19 0.01 0.05 0.37**
Note. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

Table 3
Moderation analyses for personality traits on the relation between the case method and educational outcomes.
Variable R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

Agreeableness
CM / Declarative knowledge 0.009 0.008 0.015 0.509 0.037 0.022
CM / Situation analysis 0.003 0.017 0.014 1.197 0.045 0.011
Conscientiousness
CM / Declarative knowledge 0.062 0.001 0.020 0.061 0.041 0.032
Openness to Experience
CM / Declarative knowledge 0.103 0.040 0.017 2.329* 0.074 0.006
Note: n 55. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.
Fig. 3. Interaction of openness to culture and teaching method in the prediction of declarative knowledge.
Table 4
Mediation analyses for teacher-student interaction (TSI) in the relation between personality and participation grades.
Effect b SE t Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULLI

Extroversion
Extroversion e ISI (a) 0.090 0.102 0.885
ISI e Case grade (b) 0.049 0.011 4.527**
Total effect (c) 0.004 0.007 0.478
Direct effect (c) 0.008 0.005 1.461
Indirect effect (ab) 0.004 . 0.006 0.017 0.005
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness e ISI (a) 0.297 0.137 2.177*
ISI e Case grade (b) 0.043 0.012 3.524**
Total effect (c) 0.019 0.010 1.925y
Direct effect (c) 0.006 0.009 0.687
Indirect effect (ab) 0.013 0.006 0.003 0.028
Note: n 25. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.
r 0.34 (Table 2), our moderation analyses found no signicant interaction for mastery motivation and the CM for any of
these variables; accordingly, H5a, H5b and H5c are not supported (Table 5).
H6 predicted that social motivation will positively affect the relation between the teaching method and (a) declarative
knowledge, (b) situation analysis and (c) course satisfaction. Our moderation analyses found no signicant interaction of
Fig. 4. Simple mediation model for teacher-student interaction (TSI) on the relation between conscientiousness and participation grades.
Table 5
Moderation analyses for motivational types on the relation between the teaching method and declarative knowledge, situation analysis and class
satisfaction.
Variable R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

Mastery Motivation
TM / Declarative knowledgea 0.012 0.699 0.766 0.911 0.830 2.226
TM / Situation analysisb 0.118* 0.355 0.676 0.525 0.999 1.705
TM / Satisfactionc 0.091y 0.118 0.402 0.294 0.921 0.684
Social Motivation
TM / Declarative knowledgea 0.000 0.008 0.392 0.020 0.775 0.790
TM / Situation analysisb 0.021 0.153 0.377 0.406 0.906 0.600
TM / Satisfactionc 0.162** 0.475 0.192 2.476* 0.857 0.092
Note: TM: Teaching method. an 72, bn 69, cn 73. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.
social motivation between the teaching method and declarative knowledge or situation analysis; accordingly, H6a and H6b
are not supported (Table 5). However, social motivation signicantly moderated the relation between the teaching method
and class satisfaction: R2 0.16, p 0.01, b 0.48, t 2.48, p 0.02 (Table 5). Because of this, we performed additional
analyses for each class satisfaction component (i.e. teaching method, contents, teacher-student relation and assessment) and
found signicant relations for satisfaction with contents, R2 0.10, p 0.02; b 0.48, t 2.68, p 0.01, and with the
teacher-student relation, R2 0.19, p 0.01; b 0.32, t 1.76, p 0.08. These interactions can be seen on Fig. 5, where
students under the CM are more satised with the class contents when their social motivation is higher, whereas students on
the LM with higher levels of social motivation are less satised with the contents of the class (Fig. 5a). In addition, students
under the CM are more satised with the teacher-student relation when their social motivation is high (Fig. 5b). Taken
together, H6c is partially supported.
2.3. Discussion
Our results showed that the use of the CM is as good for learning concepts (declarative knowledge) as it is for situation
analysis, as students under the CM condition did not differ from those under the LM condition on any educational outcomes.
However, when controlling for the teacher, we found that for one teacher the LM students performed better on declarative
knowledge and the CM students performed better on situation analysis. These results are somehow congruent with the
statement of Dooley and Skinner (1977) about the t of the CM with certain educational outcomes but not with others. A
possible explanation for this result could be related to the interaction between the teacher and the teaching method, which is
a relation that we will explore in the second study. Nonetheless, as we found no differences among the educational outcomes,
we conrm that the CM students are more satised than the LM students. This is a nding that is robust across the CM
literature and it is because CM students constantly interact with their teachers and classmates, which leads to a higher
perception of learning support (Martin, Sass, & Schmitt, 2012).
Some of our hypotheses were related to the possible inuence of the individual characteristics on the CM effectiveness. For
personality, we found support for the effect of openness to culture on the relation between the teaching method and
declarative knowledge; this is in accordance with the meta-analytical results (Poropat, 2009), where openness is one of the
personality traits with a higher relation to academic performance. For some, a high level of openness is considered an
important component of the ideal student (De Raad & Schouwenburg, 1996, p. 327) because it reects an association with
being foresighted, intelligent and resourceful (Poropat, 2009, p. 325).
However, contrary to our expectations, students with high extroversion did not obtain higher participation grades, and
although extroversion and social interaction are positively related, it is important to highlight that CM participation is not
related to participation quantity. A possible explanation for these results is that valuable interventions in the CM are those
that connect theory with practice and lead to the solving of a manegerial problem. Because of this, the positive path
(mediation) between conscientiousness, TSI and participation grades is coherent with the literature, as conscientiousness is
Fig. 5. Interaction effect of social motivation and teaching method in the prediction of (a) class-contents satisfaction, and (b) teacher-student relation.
related to the effort directed to case preparation prior to the class discussion, practicing active listening, and speaking up in
class to defend one's own opinion as well as to question another student's opinion (Desiraju & Gopinath, 2001).
The other important nding was that, although mastery motivation was generally related to situation analysis perfor-
mance, it did not interact with the CM for any educational or satisfaction outcome. This means that mastery motivation is
relevant for situation analysis across conditions, regardless of the teaching method. However, the results for social motivation
were different, as this type of motivation moderated the relation between the teaching method and satisfaction (contents and
teacher-student relation). The explanation for this is that students with higher social motivation, that is, they prefer to work in
a peer group or to help other students, will prefer a teaching practice that implies constant social interaction and collaborative
work with their classmates.
Study 1 yielded four important ndings: First, the CM is an effective method for learning concepts and situation analysis
and, for our sample, it is as effective as the traditional LM. Second, the CM is related to higher satisfaction in students as well as
the profession of teaching and the relation between students and professors. Third, we found evidence for the inuence of
conscientiousness, openness to experience and social motivation on the effectiveness of the CM. Fourth, we found an
important interaction between the instructor and the teaching method. However, although these results shed light on our
understanding of the mechanisms that make the CM work, the nding about the interaction between the teacher and the
teaching method leaves open two questions: (a) What is the role of the teachers' personal characteristics on the CM effec-
tiveness? and (b) Do students perceive that the CM effectiveness varies depending on the personal characteristics of the
teachers? In order to solve these questions, we conducted a second study that can give us additional information about the
role of the teacher's personal variables in the effectiveness of the CM.
3. Study 2
Taking into account the results from study 1 about the relation between the teacher and the teaching methodology, we
explored in more detail the relation between personal characteristics and CM effectiveness, especially from the point of view
of teachers. Therefore, in study 2 we aimed to examine the role of teachers' personal characteristics (personality traits) on the
students evaluation of teacher effectiveness.
As seen in study 1, we have found that for students, some personality traits are related to TSI. However, this relation is not
exclusive for students, as other researchers have reported relations between teachers' personality traits and student satis-
faction (Scheepers, Lombarts, van Aken, Heineman, & Arah, 2014) or teaching effectiveness (Murray, Rushton, & Paunonen,
1990). In order to further explore this relation, we proposed that the students' evaluation of teacher effectiveness will be
related to the teachers' personality traits; more precisely, to their conscientiousness and extroversion. We expected that these
traits would moderate the relation between the CM and students' self-learning evaluation because an engaging CM class is
imposed on the teacher's two demands: (a) high levels of content preparation (conscientiousness), and (b) high levels of
social interaction in order to maintain students' participation (extroversion).
Hypothesis 7. A teachers (a) extroversion and (b) conscientiousness will inuence the relation between case usage and students
evaluation of teacher effectiveness.
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Participants
Two samples were collected. Sample 1 was comprised of 21 teachers from the same university. Females accounted for 40%
of the sample, the mean age was 40.2 years, (SD 9.5), and their academic qualications were PhD degree 50% and MA, MBA
or MSc, 50%. Sample 2 was comprised of undergraduate students who were doing 21 different business administration
courses at the same university. These students were surveyed, with a total of 442 questionnaires being issued. Students were
able to assess various teachers depending on their particular course schedules.
3.1.2. Intervention and procedure

The participation by the professors included a personality test; in addition, they allowed access to their courses in order to
issue the questionnaires to their students. The participation for the students involved the completion of two questionnaires,
with one for motivation and the other for teacher effectiveness.
3.1.3. Ethical considerations

For both samples, condentiality standards were followed, and only researchers were able to access professor identi-
cation. For students, condentiality and anonymity were guaranteed.
3.1.4. Measures
3.1.4.1. Personality. The teachers personality was measured using the BFQ personality questionnaire. For more information
about this variable, please refer to Section 2.1.4.4.
3.1.4.2. Motivation. The student's mastery motivation was measured using ve items from the Spanish adaptation of the ISM
(McInerney & Ali, 2006). For more information about this variable, please refer to Section 2.1.4.3. In this sample the Cron-
bach's a was 0.79.
3.1.4.3. Teacher effectiveness. The students' evaluation of teacher effectiveness was measured using two questions that asked
about (a) the level at which the teacher has facilitated the learning of new declarative knowledge (e.g. the instructor of this
course has facilitated the acquisition of new knowledge), and (b) the level at which the teacher has facilitated the learning of
new situation analysis skills (e.g. the instructor of this course has facilitated the acquisition of new situation analysis skills).
The questions used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The Cronbach's alpha for this
scale was 0.86.
3.1.4.4. Case usage. For each course, we asked teachers how many cases (Harvard Business cases) were used for the course; the
mean was 4.9 cases per course (SD 4.1).
3.1.5. Analyses
To test our Hypothesis about the effect of teachers personality traits on the relation between case usage and course and
teacher effectiveness (H7), we applied moderation analysis following the procedure recommended by Hayes using the
PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS (Hayes, 2013). Additionally, we ran some independent t-tests to compare the groups of students
on mastery motivation.
3.2. Results
Hypothesis 7 predicted that a teacher's extroversion and conscientiousness will inuence the relation between case usage
and the students' evaluation of teacher effectiveness. Using moderation analysis, we found that the relation between the
number of cases used and teacher effectiveness was positively moderated by extroversion (for declarative knowledge
acquisition): R2 0.03, p 0.01; b 0.01, t 2.45, p 0.05 (Table 6). These results are represented in Fig. 6, where teachers
with high extroversion received better assessments as facilitators for knowledge acquisition when they used a higher number
of cases than when a small number of cases was used. In contrast, no signicant differences were detected for teacher
effectiveness for situation analysis (Table 6); thus, H7a is partially supported.
Although we found no signicant results for conscientiousness (Table 6), we performed additional moderation analyses at
the facet level. With these analyses we found that perseverance (a conscientiousness facet) positively moderated the rela-
tionship between the number of cases used and (a) the instructor as the facilitator for knowledge acquisition: R2 0.03,
p 0.01; b 0.01, t 2.49, p 0.05, and (b) the instructor as the facilitator for situation analysis: R2 0.04, p 0.01; b 0.01,
t 1.85, p 0.07. These results are presented in Fig. 7, where teachers with high perseverance are assessed higher as fa-
cilitators for knowledge acquisition when they have used a higher number of cases than when a small number of cases was
used; in contrast, those teachers with low perseverance are rated higher in situations with low levels of case usage (Fig. 7a). A
similar pattern can be seen for the instructor as a facilitator for situation analysis in Fig. 7b. Accordingly, H7b is fully
supported.
Finally, taking into account the results from study 1, where mastery motivation was related to situation analysis inde-
pendent of the teaching methodology, we explored the possible differences in teacher effectiveness assessment due to the
students mastery motivation level. We divided the students into two groups using quartile segmentation, those in the upper
quartile of mastery motivation (n 82) and those in the lower quartile (n 199), using an independent t-test. We found that
students with high mastery motivation assessed the role of teachers better as facilitators for both declarative knowledge:
t(278) 4.136, p < 0.001 and situation analysis: t(278) 5.557, p < 0.001.
3.3. Discussion
The results from study 2 provided additional evidence about the inuence of personal characteristics on CM effectiveness;
more specically, we found evidence of the relation between the teachers' personality and the students' assessment of the
Table 6
Moderation analyses for personality traits on the relation between case usage and students evaluation of course and teacher effectiveness.
Learning experience R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

Extroversion
CU / Instructor as facilitator for knowledge acquisition 0.030** 0.010 0.004 2.453* 0.002 0.016
CU / Instructor as facilitator for knowledge acquisition 0.030** 0.001 0.004 0.217 0.008 0.007
Conscientiousness
CU / Instructor as facilitator for knowledge acquisition 0.020* 0.003 0.005 0.519 0.008 0.013
CU / Instructor as facilitator for knowledge acquisition 0.047** 0.002 0.005 0.326 0.009 0.012
Note: CU: case usage. n 425. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.
Fig. 6. Interaction effect of number of cases and extroversion in the prediction of students' assessment of instructor as a facilitator for knowledge acquisition.
teachers effectiveness. These ndings are consistent with our Hypothesis (H7). In addition, we found that, depending on their
mastery motivational level, the students can grade their teachers differently.
Our ndings are in accordance with the literature on teachers' personality and teacher effectiveness, as both extroversion
and conscientiousness are positively related to higher ratings by students on teacher effectiveness (Scheepers et al., 2014).
Extroversion is important because it is related to social interaction, and as the teacher's role in a CM class is to orientate the
students and engage them in the discussion, teachers with higher social interaction skills are more likely to be able to engage
the students in this way. Perseverance is also relevant for teacher effectiveness as this facet is related to the persistence
needed to carry out the required tasks (the CM requires a substantial amount of preparation).
However, teacher effectiveness is inuenced not just by a teacher's personality traits but also by the students' level of
mastery motivation, as students with higher mastery motivation are more prone to assess their teachers positively. This is
expected as students with high mastery motivation have higher self-efcacy beliefs and perceptions of domain interest, and
they are focused on learning, understanding, developing their skills and mastering information (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007).
Because of this these, students are more prone to engage in classes and discussions with their teachers, which leads to a
higher perception of teacher effectiveness.
4. General discussion
Our study examined the inuence of personal characteristics on CM effectiveness. The evidence collected from studies 1
and 2 suggest that the CM is as effective as the LM in the acquisition of new declarative knowledge and the improvement of
situation analysis skills. However, our results also indicate that the relation between the CM and educational outcomes is far
more complex than we initially thought, as personal characteristics, for both teachers and students, affect this relationship in
different degrees. In the following sections, we will discuss the results for each personal characteristic.
4.1. Case method effectiveness
Our results are in accordance with the CM literature which show that the CM is effective for promoting educational
outcomes (Burgoyne & Mumford, 2001), and its usage is not just recommended for senior students (e.g. MBA students with
work experience), but, as we have found, it is also recommended for junior students who can improve both their declarative
knowledge and situation analysis skills with this method. These positive results are in accordance with the adult learning
education literature, (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2014), as undergraduate students, who are entering adulthood, are more
Fig. 7. Interaction effect of number of cases and perseverance in the prediction of (a) students' assessment of teacher as a facilitator for knowledge acquisition,
and (b) students' assessment of teacher as a facilitator for situation analysis.
interested in the course topics and are more intrinsically motivated to learn because they have chosen their major elds of
specialization (e.g. business administration, economics, communication).
In addition, we found that the CM is effective not just within the North American context but also in other contexts, such as
Colombia, which belongs to a different cultural cluster (Latin American). Colombia differs in some of its cultural values, such
as power distance and uncertainty avoidance (Dorfman, Javidan, Hanges, Dastmalchian, & House, 2012). However, as we have
seen, there is not a simple, direct relation between the CM and educational outcomes; this relation is far more complex than
we initially thought as it is inuenced by some personal variables.
4.2. Personal characteristics
We found relations between personality traits, attitudes, motivation and educational outcomes. This is in line with pre-
vious research (Poropat, 2009), which found that the traits of conscientiousness and openness are highly relevant in edu-
cation. This provides additional evidence of the importance of individual characteristics on the CM effectiveness.
Our results indicate that the personality of teachers plays a fundamental role in CM effectiveness, as students tend to
attribute a higher level of effectiveness to teachers who are more extroverted and persevering. We found that teachers
personal characteristics are fundamental to understanding their effectiveness, as conscientiousness and openness to expe-
rience inuence the relation between the CM and learning outcomes.
The initial unresolved questions about differences in learning performance in study 1 can be understood with the data
from study 2, as there is a relation between certain personality proles (e.g. high extroversion and perseverance) and teacher
effectiveness. The teachers from study 1 were very similar in four of the ve personality traits (i.e. agreeableness, consci-
entiousness, openness to experience and emotional stability); however, for extroversion levels, the results for one of the
teachers were around the population mean, but the results for the other teachers were about 1.5 SD below the population
mean. This difference could inuence the students perception of teacher effectiveness for the CM course and the congruence
between the LM and better performance on declarative knowledge could be due to this personality prole and not the
teaching method per se.
For efcient CM teaching, different ideal personality proles are suggested for students and teachers. Conscientiousness is
a must for both of them, but extroversion is not as important for students as it is for teachers. For teachers, extroversion is a
central trait, as they have to manage the interaction of a group of students, engage them in the discussion and initiate
(sometimes force) the interaction between the students.
Although we did not nd any specic interaction between mastery motivation and the CM, this does not mean that
mastery motivation is not important for teaching effectiveness; our results suggest that mastery motivation is equally
relevant across teaching methods (not just for one of them). The literature shows that mastery motivation is an important
component of the classroom climate (Patrick, Kaplan, & Ryan, 2011) because college students are more guided by internal
motivators (Knowles et al., 2014). Additionally, our results suggest that motivation is an important component in the CM
learning process, not as an outcome but as an independent variable that can inuence the relation between teaching
methodology and satisfaction, and depending on the particular motivation (i.e. social), students can be more satised with
the CM.
Finally, our results in respect of the relation between the CM and satisfaction were consistent with the CM literature, as
students under the CM reported higher satisfaction levels. These results were expected as Latin American countries are highly
collective orientated, and social interaction between individuals is highly appreciated (Hofstede, 2001; House, Hanges,
Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). In addition, students satisfaction with teachers is related to an expectation of mutual
respect and condence, freedom and acceptance of differences (Knowles et al., 2014). From this perspective it is common for
students to feel more engaged and satised with groups in which these characteristics are pursued.
4.3. Implications for practice and research
Our results on CM effectiveness can improve the teaching-learning process in various directions, so we highlight the most
important implications for teachers. First, the CM is a pedagogical method that is suitable for the improvement of both
declarative knowledge and situation analysis in business administration contexts, as our results indicate that this teaching
methodology is at least as effective as the more traditional teaching methods used in higher education. Second, although the
CM can be highly effective, it is not necessarily well-suited to all teachers, as CM effectiveness can be affected by certain
personality proles (high conscientiousness, high openness to culture and high extroversion), and because of this, teachers
with low extroversion should take into account other teaching strategies in order to complement the CM. Third, the students
motivation and personality proles can also inuence CM effectiveness. In order to improve this effectiveness, it is recom-
mended that the teacher should know in advance some information about the personality and motivation of each of their
students. This can be obtained via a small questionnaire at the beginning of the class that can guide the teacher during their
CM discussions throughout the semester.
Our research has shed light on four research gaps in the CM literature. (a) Traditionally, CM studies focused only on one
protagonist of the teaching-learning process (i.e. either teachers or students). Our research took into account these two
populations, and we found that their pattern responses to the CM are different. (b) Most studies did not consider the indi-
vidual characteristics of personality, motivation or attitudes in their analyses, whereas our results showed that these personal
variables are the key to understanding the effects of the CM on learning outcomes, and that relation cannot be studied in
isolation from the behavioural tendencies of both teachers and students. (c) The studies on CM effectiveness have generally
concentrated on single learning outcomes, whereas our results indicate that the inuence of the CM is not the same for all
learning outcomes because some personal variables affect the students responses differently. (d) Our research provided
evidence of the effectiveness of the CM in a cultural setting that is different to the traditional research on the CM conducted in
the North American context.
However, two major questions remain open and we call for more research on CM teaching in order to fully understand this
teaching methodology. (a) Are there other personal characteristics that mediate or moderate the relation between the CM and
learning outcomes? These might include, for example, a study of positive-negative effects, personal values, self-efcacy or
intelligence and how these personal characteristics interact among them (e.g. interaction between particular personality
traits and motivational factors). (b) Our research focused on the role of personal variables that are stable across time. We did
not explore the role of more dynamic variables, such as the role of contextual variables in the relationship between the CM
and learning outcomes or any differences in CM effectiveness depending on variables such as the university resources,
university culture or specic training. We urge researchers to explore these questions in order to deepen our knowledge of
CM teaching effectiveness.
4.4. Limitations
Our study can be improved in many ways, the most important of which are as follows. In study 1, the quasi-experimental
design fell short of robustness due to the non-random assignment of participants. For future studies, we suggest the use of an
experimental design in which the random assignment of students to groups can be achieved. Our sample was small and some
mediation and moderation analyses have a high standard error that can be due to this issue; for future studies, we suggest to
increase the sample in all groups in order to reduce this problem. Our learning variable was a written exam, which could limit
the scope of the CM; other methods could be tested in order to assess the effect on the CM. Finally, our behavioural codi-
cation for the relation between the students and the professor was too general and some behaviours escaped the codication
(e.g. non-verbal communication). For study 2, the small number of professors in our study limited our analysis of personality.
This problem was also present for the sample of students, which prevented us from performing complementary analyses (e.g.
multilevel techniques). In addition, we could not apply personality questionnaires to students in order to control the teacher-
student personality t.
4.5. Conclusions
The case method is an extraordinary teaching method that can be as effective as the more traditional lecture methods for
business administration learning. This method is effective for promoting educational outcomes, and its usage is not just
recommended for senior students, but it is also recommended for junior students who can improve both their declarative
knowledge and situation analysis skills with this method. However, it is important to acknowledge that we cannot forget the
individual characteristics of personality (conscientiousness, openness and extroversion) and motivation (mastery and social
orientation) in the equation. Personality of teachers plays a fundamental role in case method effectiveness, as students tend to
attribute a higher level of effectiveness to teachers who are more extroverted and persevering. Students are generally more
satised with courses and teachers that handle this methodology; however, there is an important interaction between the
teaching method and the professor that can be associated with the teacher's personal characteristics.
Funding
This research has been funded by Ponticia Universidad Javeriana (project number: 5516).
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The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 409e428

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The International Journal of Management Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme

Inuence of personality and motivation on case method

1.1. Learning methods in business education

1.2. Case method effects

1.3. Individual characteristics

1.4. Overview of the present research

2.1.2. Intervention and procedures

Fig. 1. Flowchart of participants for study 1.

Week Topic Book chapter (LM groups)a Case (CM groups)

2.1.3. Ethical considerations and manipulation check

2.1.5. Analysis strategy

2.2.1. Descriptive analyses

2.2.2. Manipulation check

2.2.3. Hypotheses testing

Note. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

Variable R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

Note: n 55. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

Effect b SE t Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULLI

Note: n 25. yp < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

Variable R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

3.1.2. Intervention and procedure

3.1.3. Ethical considerations

Learning experience R2 b SE t LLCI ULLI

4.1. Case method effectiveness

4.2. Personal characteristics

4.3. Implications for practice and research

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