Exploring formative research in the administrative specialty from Manabí, Ecuador

Abstract

Higher Education in Ecuador offers a dynamic context where universities gradually transform into centers of knowledge production and technology incubation and transfer. Formative research contributes to integrating teaching and research functions and to the comprehensive training of the student, through innovative pedagogical strategies and methodological procedures in accordance with global trends in Higher Education. The objective of this work is to propose a methodological procedure that guides academic tasks and articulates the substantive functions of teaching, research and connection of students of the subject: Distribution Channels, Administration career, Technical University of Manabí, with social actors who participate in the cocoa market. A mixed approach methodology is used, with an exploratory and descriptive scope. The main findings confirm that the proposed procedure validates the link between teaching, research, professional training and society. It is confirmed that formative research applied in real-world contexts strengthens relationships between students, teachers and communities, managing to integrate study plans and educational offers. It was possible to study the cocoa marketing process in the cantons of Portoviejo, Manta and Junín, providing relevant information for decision making and future commercial strategies.

Keywords: Cocoa, marketing, pedagogical strategies, formative research, connection with society.