Data Rural Immersion 1

Business schools in India have recently added rural immersion program as a curricular component with the objective of delivering learning outcomes including enhancing contextual awareness, social sensitivity, communication capabilities, team working etc. along with developing their general self-efficacy. As this form of pedagogical intervention has become popular only during the last few years, a need was felt to understand effectiveness of such programs in enhancing general self-efficacy of participating students. The study adopts a quantitative approach to explore the effectiveness of rural immersion program in enhancing general self-efficacy of business students. This study reveals that in general students participating in rural immersion program exhibit a higher mean score for general self-efficacy as compared to students who did not participate. Variations in the findings were noted for different demographic groups except the gender of the participating students. Statistically significant difference in the mean scores for general self-efficacy was observed for students from rural background but not for the students with urban background. It was higher for students coming from rural background as compared to students from urban background. Similarly, students enrolled in specialised programs indicated a higher mean score for general self-efficacy but not the students enrolled in general program. Findings from the study will inform designers of rural immersion programs to make them more focussed, better meet student needs and deliver enhanced learning outcomes.