Mapping 'participatory appropriation' after the fact : field observations as a formal introduction to retailing for marketing students

Field observations provide pathways for marketing students engaged in situated learning. Mapping that which students appropriate as they participate in field observations provides early evidence of transitions in critical reasoning and personal reflection. These dimensions to ongoing personal development in marketing students are pivotal. Actual observed experience in “live” retail settings is seen as a way to broach the gap between rhetoric and reality in marketing.