MS/OR Education: Quality of an Operations Management Course: An Examination of the Effects of Prerequisites and Their Transfer

Increasingly the value of educating students in quantitative methods has been questioned [Business Week 1982; Greenberg 1982]. Discussions have centered on whether current quantitative methods courses are appropriate and whether “business sense” can be taught. Another side of the question has not been addressed, however: whether the students in these courses are prepared to learn what we have to offer. We have not considered whether the business curriculum equips students to appreciate fully what quantitative techniques are and how they can be used. Do students miss the forest (that is, how can they use this) for the trees (that is, what are the specific computations of the techniques) because the courses in operations research and operations management are not appropriate or because they can't cope with what is taught?