The Effects of Creating Psychological Ownership among Students in Group Projects

This article proposes that marketing instructors may be able to enhance student learning and satisfaction in group projects by applying a key principle of effective group leadership: creating a sense of ownership in the minds of students. Student ownership in the educational process is proposed to be a key part of the success of group experiential exercises. This article (1) draws from the management and marketing literatures to advance the idea that student self-reports of learning from class projects can be increased by increasing student ownership; (2) compares student response to an experiential teaching tool across two conditions: control group—the instructor chooses and provides products to be sold—and high student ownership—the students choose and provide products to be sold; and (3) demonstrates that experiential education tools are more effective when they include an element of ownership.