Approaches to social constructivist accounting education

Abstract

A competency-based approach to teaching, learning and assessment that focuses on the development of competencies that are essential for success in the accounting profession, has been proposed for accounting education. Rooted in social constructivism, this thesis reports on three competency-based approaches to accounting education. Paper 1 explores undergraduate accounting students’ perceptions of their experience of team teaching and suggests that the respondent students assessed the teaming and equal status models of team teaching positively. The students were statistically significantly more positive about the advantages of the teaming model than the equal status model. The teaming model provides students with lectures that, from their perspective, are more interesting, aid the students’ understanding, and provide students with faster and more individualized support than the equal status model. In adopting the teaming model, teachers should, however, consider sources of possible confusion and intimidation. Paper 2 discusses the development of two Messenger bots using Chatfuel, a visual development environment for developers that do not have any programming or coding knowledge. Informed by social constructivist learning, the content of the messages sent to the students was carefully scripted and personalized, to encourage anthropomorphism on the part of the student users. The majority of the respondent student users expressed their overall satisfaction with the Messenger bots. The methodology applied in the development of the different bots can be used by instructors in developing their own Messenger bots, to support their teaching and their students' learning. Paper 3 reports on the development, and the students’ perceptions of their experience, of a Team Assessment with Immediate Feedback (TAIF), in which immediate formative feedback is provided to the students by their peers and the assessment instrument (the IF-AT_ form). Results of the quantitative and qualitative data, collected in a survey, suggest that the majority of the students experienced the TAIF positively. The study provided some initial evidence that a team assessment in a culturally diverse student cohort may enhance intercultural collaboration. Team assessments may also contribute towards re-establishing the link between professional accounting education and practice.