Students’ conceptions of learning in the context of an accounting degree

ABSTRACT

Students' conceptions of learning (CoL) play an important role in the learning process leading to the development of generic skills. This paper investigates whether CoL of accounting students can be developed by incorporating high-level cognitive skills progressively within the accounting curriculum. First, the study explored, using phenomenography, the variation in accounting students' CoL. The findings highlighted some nuances in accountings students' CoL and that lower-order CoL were prevalent among accounting students. However, more (less) third-year students than second-year students adopted higher- (lower-) order CoL. Upon examining the learning objectives, teaching methods and assessment of all units comprising the accounting major of the host university, evidence was found that CoL are progressively developed and shaped, albeit in a limited way, based on the levels of cognitive domain emphasised within the curriculum. The findings highlight the need for accounting educators to take a whole of the programme approach to developing higher-order CoL.

KEYWORDS:

• Students' conceptions of learning
• phenomenography
• learning context
• accounting degrees
• generic skills

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful and constructive comments provided by the two anonymous reviewers. The authors also wish to thank Guenter A. Plum for his editorial assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Subhash Abhayawansa http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6931-4778

Notes

1. The Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency enforces the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF). AQF for a bachelor degree include within the learning outcomes the following cognitive and behavioural skills and their application: ‘cognitive skills to review critically, analyse, consolidate and synthesise knowledge; cognitive and technical skills to demonstrate a broad understanding of knowledge with depth in some areas; cognitive and creative skills to exercise critical thinking and judgement in identifying and solving problems with intellectual independence and communication skills to present a clear, coherent and independent exposition of knowledge and ideas’ (AQFC, 2013, p. 16).

2. Meyer and Eley (1999, p. 198) argue that

‘individual students might well adopt differentiated patterns of learning behaviours that are attributable to the learning context shaped by different subjects. … That is perceptions and experiences of learning context might be shaped by the epistemology of a discipline, and they might, therefore, vary considerably from one discipline to another’

However, they did not investigate how CoL is influenced by the epistemology of a discipline. Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne (2010) explored how students and teachers conceive learning in the particular disciplinary context of Bioscience. They attributed differences in CoL observed in Bioscience students compared to what has been identified in prior research to the impact of the learning and teaching environment in Bioscience.

3. Norton and Crowley (1995) acknowledge these limitations and argue that a better understanding of the impact of the workshop programme in terms of its developmental aspect could have been obtained if changes in CoL were monitored over the three years of the undergraduate course.

4. Australia has a binary system of education: the higher education sector and the Vocational Education and Training sector. TAFE institutes are a main player in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Registered Training Organisations also provides VET education.

5. The study reported in this paper is part of a larger research project on student experience. Hence, the questionnaire comprised other questions that do not form part of this study. The approval to conduct the survey was granted by the human research ethics committee of the university hosting the study.

6. In the host institution, the Summer semester involves the same face-to-face teaching hours per week as semesters 1 and 2. Students are recommended to spend at least 12.5 hours of study per week for each unit regardless of the semester in which they study.

7. First-year students were excluded based on the research evidence which suggests that transition from secondary or vocational education to tertiary education affects student behaviour and experience in the first year of degree programmes. Accordingly, CoL of first-year students could be subject to noise caused by the transition effect and would not adequately reflect the influence of the cognitive domain emphasised within the first-year learning context. By starting our analysis with second-year students, we have attempted to neutralise this transition effect.

8. As an example, under the null hypothesis of the two variables being independent the probability of a student being in second year and having lower-order conceptions P (second year and lower-order conceptions) = P (second year) * P (lower-order conceptions). The expected count then equals P (second year and lower-order conceptions) * the total number of students in the sample. The larger the difference between the expected and actual counts, the more likely that there is a relationship between the two variables and they are therefore not independent.

9. Given the small count for the conception – learning as acquiring skills – the comparison of the actual and expected counts for that category is not meaningful.

10. We considered the object of learning to be the dividing line between lower- and higher-order conceptions. A conception was considered as lower-order if the object of learning was limited to the subject matter (be it the text/topic itself or the meaning of the text/topic) and higher-order if the object of learning went beyond this and included the phenomenon which the topic/text represented or life in general. The criterion we adopt aligns students’ conceptions of learning more closely with students’ approaches to learning.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded through the research grant scheme of the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. Apart from providing funding, AFAANZ was not involved in any part of the conduct of the research reported in this paper.