Student perceptions of blended learning interventions in teaching auditing

Abstract

Education, and especially accounting education, has been criticised for not delivering graduates for the work place with the necessary skills and attributes. In an effort to address this criticism, lecturers incorporate more experiential learning into the curriculum. However, in a quest to include more experiential learning activities in the course delivery, lecturing time is reduced, and lecturers have to innovate in order to fit all the subject/course content into the allotted time. Incorporating technology to extend the classroom into the digital realm is one way to relieve the pressure of covering subject/course content. It opens up avenues for a blended or hybrid learning model, where a carefully considered combination of online and face-to-face teaching and learning is applied. Auditing as a discipline poses another challenge to educators. The subject is perceived by students to be very theoretical, while in fact it is an application subject which requires critical thinking and professional judgment. Students incur difficulties in comprehending how the theoretical knowledge is applied in practice, which manifests in them following a superficial approach to mastering the auditing subject matter. In an effort to breach the gap between theory and practice, various implementations of experiential learning in auditing, often in a blended learning environment, have been reported by scholars. However, those studies report the effect of fragmented interventions and fail to provide a holistic view of the effect of multiple blended learning interventions. Furthermore, literature on the effect of a blended learning approach incorporating experiential learning which focuses on learning is limited, and studies are mainly done in small class settings. This study aims to expand on the body of knowledge, by reporting on how students perceived different blended learning elements (flipped classroom, an online simulation and cooperative learning initiatives), incorporated in the holistic blended learning model in an auditing module/course, to contribute to their learning and engagement with the subject matter. Furthermore, the study investigates how the perceived contribution differs between students with different academic performance levels. The study also determines whether one of the blended learning elements (an online simulation) was perceived by students to be useful, easy to use and influenced their emotional perception (affect) of the learning experience. In order to achieve the objective of the study, a quantitative research approach was followed, whereby a custom-developed survey was distributed amongst third year auditing students at the university where the study was performed. The findings in this study indicate that respondents perceived weekly tutorials to contribute highly towards their learning of and engagement with auditing, while the other flipped classroom elements (videos and lectures) had a moderate contribution. Respondents perceived the online simulation, and peer feedback and mentoring (TUT Buddy and the BuddyM) elements to contribute least to their learning and engagement with the auditing subject matter. Statistically significant differences were identified between high performing and low performing students, with regard to the weekly tutorials, the online simulation and the TUT Buddy and BuddyM elements. Low performing students perceived the online simulation, the TUT Buddy and BuddyM elements to contribute more to their learning and engagement, than high performing students. These latter three elements (online simulation and Buddy activities) included more cooperative learning and were regarded as student-driven activities. The results also indicate that high performing students coped well with the blended learning model and exhibited characteristics of becoming self-directed learners, as they did not require as much support. The low performing students were more positive about cooperative learning activities. They also perceived the online simulation to be more useful, easy to use and enjoyed the experience more, compared to their medium and high performing counterparts. The results clearly show that students do have preference for specific elements in the holistic blend. The holistic blend allows room to meet the needs of diverse students with different learning preferences and it allows students to engage with the auditing subject matter in a way that meets their preferences, whilst developing additional skills. Therefore a holistic blended learning model appears to be an acceptable way of teaching auditing, even in large class settings.