Roleplay and Interpersonal Skills Self-Efficacy in a Financial Analytics Course

This chapter explores how to integrate the in-demand soft skills with the hard skills of financial analytics in an experiential roleplay. Specifically, it examines the impact of the experiential roleplay on MBA students’ self-perceived interpersonal skills. Designed using the experiential learning principles for students to practice and reflect, the roleplay is found to improve students’ self-perceived interpersonal skills in all 28 survey items except intercultural sensitivity. OLS regressions using the pre-roleplay data show students with longer work experience rated themselves higher for interpersonal skills. However, after the roleplay, difference-in-difference analysis indicates the outcome of the interpersonal skills is not affected by the length of work experience. It implies that students with less work experience did not have a lower level of self-perceived interpersonal skills than peers due to the intervention. This chapter contributes to the literature on self-efficacy theory by providing empirical evidence that roleplays can supplement real-world experience in interpersonal skills development. It offers important insight for educators that work-integrated authentic learning can improve students’ self-efficacy and job readiness.