Abstract:
Higher education in accounting faces a challenge to shift its emphasis from
reproducing technical knowledge to developing personal capabilities such as
critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, communication and
teamwork. The educational psychology literature suggests students will not
make the cognitive effort to develop personal capabilities unless they frrst
experience a deep approach to learning; and the experience of high-level
relevance structure, high-level conception of learning and intrinsic
motivation strongly support deep learning. This study examines how
accounting students can be supported to experience high-level relevance
structure, high-level conception of learning, intrinsic motivation and deep
learning in the context of a university accounting course.
Phenomenography is used to study the experience of learning of students in
a third year undergraduate accounting course into which an integrated set of
interventions involving Assessment, Teamwork, Teacher-Student
Relationship and Instruction was introduced. An assignment in five stages
and five session preparation assignments, supplemented with a focus group
and surveys of students, identified and captured the ways students
experience key aspects of how they learn. A key fmding of this study is that
it is possible to transform the design and delivery of a single university
course to support a large proportion of students to experience change in how
they learn accounting (and, in particular, to experience deep learning)
through the careful adaptation of education theory. An implication of this
study is the need to support students to experience change in how they learn
in frrst year courses to enable them to develop personal capabilities in their
later university studies.
