Changing the learning environment to promote deep learning approaches in first-year accounting students

Abstract

Developing deep approaches to learning is claimed to enhance students' engagement with their subject material and result in improved analytical and conceptual thinking skills. Numerous calls have been made for accounting educators to adopt strategies that produce such results. This paper reports on changes to the learning environment centring on the introduction of group learning activities that were designed to improve the quality of students' learning outcomes. The impact of changes in the learning environment on students' approaches to learning, as measured by the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) (Biggs, 1987b), was then assessed. Results indicate that, across the semester, accounting students exhibited a small but statistically significant increase in their deep learning approach, and a small but statistically significant reduction in their surface learning approach. The results suggest that accounting educators, through changes in the learning environment, may be able to influence the learning approaches adopted by accounting students.

Keywords:

• approaches to learning
• study process questionnaire
• deep
• surface

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Malcolm Eley, Rosina Mladenovic and participants in research seminars at Monash and Sydney Universities and participants in the 2002 AAANZ Accounting Education Interest Group research seminar for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. We also thank Philip Gharghori for assistance in collecting and collating the data used in the study. Financial assistance was provided by a Monash University Faculty of Business and Economics Teaching Innovation Grant.

Notes

While the deep and surface approaches to learning characterise the way in which students engage with a task, they do not describe how students organise themselves to complete the task. Biggs (1987a) proposed the achieving approach to learning, which describes how students organise time and space to obtain the highest grades, whether or not the material is interesting. This learning approach is based on competition and ego enhancement (Biggs, 1987a; 1989; Biggs and Moore, 1993; Beattie et al., 1997; Booth et al., 1999). Students' approach (deep versus surface) may interact with the way in which students organise their time to complete the task. For example, a student may rote-learn in an organised way (surface and achieving approaches) or search for meaning in an organised way (deep and achieving approaches) (Biggs, 1987a). The achieving approach has received relatively little attention in Biggs' recent work (Birkett and Mladenovic, 2002).

The tutorial programme was designed to enhance students' deep approach to learning and to discourage a surface approach to learning. Consequently, the study only examines changes in deep and surface learning approaches, not the achieving approach. See Biggs (1987b) and Booth et al. (1999) for further details regarding the calculation of learning approach scores.

After completion of their final year of secondary education in the State of Victoria, students are awarded a score out of 100 representing their percentile rank relative to other students applying to enter tertiary education from secondary school in that State. Tertiary entrance scores have been used to proxy academic ability in prior studies (Farley and Ramsay 1988; Rohde and Kavanagh, 1996). Also, most students undertaking the subject enter university directly from secondary school, therefore their tertiary entrance score is a timely measure of their academic ability. Of the available sample, only 82 had an ENTER score available.

There is a statistically significant correlation between ΔSURFACE and ΔDEEP (r = 0.286, p < 0.01). As such, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is required to control the overall Type I error rate.

The effect size was calculated as (Trial 2 mean – Trial 1 mean)/Trial 1 SD (Cohen 1977). This produces an effect size of 0.125 and − 0.183 for the overall deep approach and overall surface approach, respectively. Both effect sizes are between 0.10 and 0.39 and thus are considered small.

The continuous between-subject factors of age, general academic ability, and prior accounting performance were modelled as covariates, with gender modelled as a 2-level between-subjects factor.

To further understand the significant between-subjects effect of age, the sample was split at the mean age (18.87 years) and paired sample t-tests performed. Results show a decrease in the surface approach score of 4.05 (t = 1.337, p > 0.10) for younger students and an increase in the surface approach of 0.34 for older students (t = 0.299, p > 0.10). However, the change in surface approach scores is not statistically significant for either group of students.

To further understand the significant between-subjects effect of general academic ability, the sample was split at the mean of general academic ability, with students reporting a tertiary entrance score above the mean categorised as ‘high ability’ and students below the mean categorised as ‘low ability’. Results of paired sample t-tests reveals a marginally significant increase in the surface approach score of 2.36 for high ability students (t = 1.579, p < 0.10), and a significant decrease in the surface approach of 4.25 for low ability students (t = 2.768, p < 0.05). Thus, the statistically significant between-subjects effect of general academic ability is due to those students with higher general academic ability increasing their surface approach score, with those of lower general academic ability decreasing their surface approach score. This appears somewhat contrary to expectations as Biggs (1978) and Biggs and Moore (1993) argued that students of lower academic ability are more likely to adopt a surface approach. However, a comparison of the learning approach scores for different levels of academic ability in this sample may not be particularly useful as none of the students would be considered of low academic ability in terms of the general student population.