Student-led and teacher-led case presentations: empirical evidence about learning styles in an accounting course

Abstract

Educators and employers alike have made repeated calls for developing graduates who are active, interdependent, and independent learners. While the use of business case studies has been a frequently promoted method for achieving this objective, there is a dearth of information about how best to use the case study method, i.e. should the method be student- or teacher-led? The findings from this study suggest that the choice is far from trivial. Teacher-led cases, which were associated with low levels of student involvement in and responsibility for the case study, resulted in poorly balanced learners. According to learning style theory, these students are less capable of carrying out plans and tasks and show less proclivity for becoming involved in new experiences. Such a finding reinforces Libby's (Issues in Accounting Education 6(2), 193–213, 1991) view that the presence of cases is not the panacea to enhancing generic learning skills. Rather, it is how the case studies are used and the level of student involvement that is of vital importance.

Keywords:

• case studies
• learning styles
• learning style inventory
• experiential learning
• active learning
• accounting education

Notes

Ability to become fully, openly involved and without bias in new experiences.

Ability to reflect on and observe these new experiences from a variety of perspectives.

Ability to create concepts that integrate these observations into logically sound theories.

Ability to use these theories to make decisions and solve problems.

The other half of the class would complete their group case studies after the post-test. This group is the control group at the time of the post-test.

Statistical testing was repeated with ‘active’ defined to include those students who had participated in a group presentation only. The results for this group (n = 35) showed the same trends as for the group more widely defined as ‘active’ (n = 46); i.e. a tendency towards more balanced learning styles, but it was statistically non-significant.