Abstract
Problem-based learning and experiential learning perspectives on management education suggest that empowering student teams could help to improve learning outcomes. However, similar to individual learners, student teams may succumb to misleading heuristics and cognitive biases. As a result, as we argue in this paper, student teams can fall into incompetence traps that arise when exploitation (applying and improving new capabilities), exploration (learning and integrating new capabilities) or both of these principal learning activities are underdeveloped or stifled. Consequently, we define the three generic incompetence traps: (1) traps of habit (exploitation suppresses exploration); (2) traps of search (exploration suppresses exploitation); and (3) traps of confusion (both exploration and exploitation are suppressed). We argue that each of these generic traps is comprised of the three mutually reinforcing traps at the levels of perception (seeing), cognition (thinking), and operation (doing/acting). Advancing Experiential Learning Theory, we propose that student teams should encourage their members that belong to particular learning types - defined in this paper as Feelers, Observers, Thinkers, and Doers - to act as devils’ advocates (DAs) and encourage team members that belong to other learning types to act as Dialectical Inquirers (DIs) to verify DAs’ proposals. We argue that assigning the roles of DAs and DIs to specific learning types will help student groups recognize, diagnose and disentangle particular incompetence traps, and hence, improve student team’s problem solving and learning activities.