Enhancing Students Learning Through Practical Knowledge Taught By Industry Professionals

A topic of interest in teaching businesscourses is incorporating the practical aspect of the subject matter intoteaching as this helps to bridge theory and real-world practice. Research indicates that students gain a deeperunderstanding of material when theory is contextualized through real-lifepractical examples. However, given thetraditional career-path of academics in finance in countries such as SouthAfrica, a significant proportion of finance lecturers have little or norelevant practical experience in the subject matter. In this paper, we discuss a strategyimplemented in finance courses at sophomore and senior levels in order to linktheory and practice. Guest speakers were invited from industry to contextualize the topics for the students. Students perceptions on the benefit they derived from the speakers were deduced from statistical analyses of student evaluations. The results indicate that the experience waspositive and aided in their understanding of the subject.