worlds apart: students' experiences of learning introductory accounting
TRANSCRIPT
( )Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2000 11, 479]504doi:10.1006/cpac.1999.0390Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
WORLDS APART: STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES OFLEARNING INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING
URSULA LUCASU
University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
This paper argues that, whilst a substantial amount of educational re-search has been conducted within the introductory accounting curricu-lum, there is scope for alternative research founded on a particular viewof learning, that of social constructivism. In this view, learning is seento be a response to a student’s perception of, or way of experiencing,his or her particular situation rather than the outcome of a particularpersonality trait or a conditioned biographical response. This argument issupported by the presentation of the findings of a phenomenographicstudy into students’ experiences of learning introductory accounting withinthe United Kingdom undergraduate curriculum. This qualitativeinterview-based research reveals two contrasting worlds of accounting:for most students it is a world of detachment and for only a few is it aworld of engagement. Drawing on these findings, the paper proposesthat an awareness of the nature of the student experience may providea new way of viewing the introductory accounting curriculum and a newagenda for future research.
2000 Academic PressQ
Introduction
( )Within the United Kingdom UK and the North American universities asubstantial amount of accounting teaching takes place within introductoryaccounting courses1. Such courses comprise the first course for account-
(ing students and, often, the last course for non-accounting students e.g.)business studies, computing and engineering students . The significance
of such courses lies in the way in which they may prepare accountingstudents for subsequent studies and non-accounting students for theirfuture encounters with accounting in the world of work.
The introductory accounting curriculum has been the focus of a subs-tantial amount of educational research, particularly within the USA. Yetprevious accounting education research has tended to take a relatively
Address for Correspondence: UDr Ursula Lucas, Bristol Business School, University ofthe West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK. E-mail:[email protected]
Received 23 June 1999; revised 12 September 1999; accepted 1 November 1999
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narrow view of what is meant by ‘‘learning’’. For example, if oneconsiders learning to be essentially a cognitive process then one willresearch the mental processes and structures associated with the acqui-sition of knowledge and skills e.g. the capacity of working memory orinformation storage and retrieval skills. An alternative view of learningsees it as a behaviour which may originate in a student’s psychody-namic history and reflect individual differences in how the world isperceived, how tasks are learned and how problems are solved. For
( )example, learning styles research, as exemplified by Kolb’s 1975 Learn-ing Styles Inventory, considers the stable individual personality traits thata student brings to the learning process. Both of these views of learn-ing see it as a behaviour which is essentially context-free, in thatlearning styles and cognitive strategies operate relatively independentlyof changes in context.
This paper argues that we should also consider an alternative view oflearning: that of social constructivism. Social constructivism, as a term,covers a wide range of particular theories. However, its essential aspectis that it views learning as a process of construction of knowledge andskills which takes place in a social context. Whilst knowledge maydevelop internally, it also develops in a process of interactions with thesocial world. Hence there is a need for a research approach which takesthe student’s experience of learning within a certain context as its focus ofinterest.
This paper will, firstly, review the nature of existing research into theintroductory accounting curriculum and propose an alternative researchapproach known as phenomenography. Secondly, this proposal will besupported by an account of research findings from a phenomenographicstudy into students’ experiences of learning introductory accounting. Fi-nally, consideration will be given to the implications of these researchfindings for the introductory accounting curriculum and future educatio-nal research.
A Review of Previous Educational Research
Accounting education research within the introductory accounting curricu-lum has tended to focus strongly on predictors of how students willperform on these courses in relation to stable personality traits orbiodata. Performance, in this sense, refers to the ability of students topass the course and to earn good marks. Reviews of educational re-
( )search for example, Rebele et al. 1991, 1998a,b show that there is avast array of research which seeks to explain differences in performanceby reference to variables such as previous study of accounting, genderand mathematical ability. In addition, some research has looked at thepossible effect of contextual variables such as class size, teachers’ pre-sentation and characteristics, workload and grading systems.
This research is characterized by its view of the student and oflearning. The student is seen as an individual who responds in a
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relatively deterministic way as a consequence of his or her biodatawithin a teaching context which can be described in terms of particularvariables. However, there is now a strong body of research whichsupports the contention that learning is relational. Marton and Booth( ) ( )1997 and Ramsden 1992 provide comprehensive accounts of suchresearch. According to the relational view of learning, students learnwithin a particular context. These researchers argue that learning doesnot solely constitute a particular personality trait, nor is it the outcomeof a conditioned biographical response but is a response to a student’s
(perception, or way of experiencing his or her particular situation Thomas,)1951 .
Thus learning is seen as a process of construction of knowledge andskills which takes place in a social context. The outcome of learning isviewed as a change in how a student experiences and understands a
( )phenomena Johansson et al., 1985 . If one adopts this view of learningan alternative research approach is needed which takes the lived experi-ence of the student as its focus and establishes how a student under-stands a phenomena such as accounting. This is the phenomenographicresearch approach.
If learning is defined as a change in understanding, one should bequite clear about the type of conceptual understanding with which oneis concerned. Conceptions can be seen from two perspectives: a
(mental-model perspective and an experientially-based perspective Linder,)1993 . Linder describes the former as depicting conceptions as tangible,
inside-head constructs made up of structured propositional patterns ofreasonings, whereas the experientially-based perspective, made explicitby the phenomenographic view of learning, depicts conceptions as beingcharacterizations which reflect person]world relationships, embodied in
( ) 2Brentano’s 1973 notion of intentionality .Existing accounting education research commonly assumes the out-
come of learning to be reflected in examination marks. However, re-search in other subject areas indicates that we should not be surprisedto find that students possess misconceptions about basic disciplinaryconcepts in spite of passing the course. In particular, research in thesciences shows that students frequently demonstrate misunderstandingsof key concepts. For example, students can recall formulae correctly butmay be unable to explain principles and the basis for their predictions( )Gunstone & White, 1988 .
Although this finding might not entirely surprise us, phenomenographic(research Dahlgren, 1984; Johansson et al., 1985; Dahlgren & Marton,
)1978; Svensson & Hogfors, 1988 has also demonstrated that an individ-ual may possess more than one conception of a particular phenomenon.
( )Johansson 1981 showed how a student might change from an Aris-(totelian to a Newtonian conception depending on the context e.g. the
)movement of bicycles compared with the movement of cars . Similarly,( )Dahlgren 1984 found that people tended to explain prices of commodi-
( )ties differently depending on the type of object bun or gold whichformed the subject of the enquiry.
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Although we know from previous research how students perform inrelation to some biographical variables, we know little about how stu-dents change their understanding of, and relationship with, accounting as a
( )result of their studies. Cohen and Hanno 1993 found that students’initial experiences with accounting were a primary determinant ofwhether or not they selected it as a major. Students who did notchoose accounting as a major indicated that they found the coursecontent to be boring and the work to be too number-oriented. Inaddition, non-accounting majors chose to stay away from accountingeven though they recognized that the career opportunities were greaterthan in other business areas. It is therefore possible that introductoryaccounting proves to be problematic for the student and involves littlechange of their perspective. Following the issue of the AECC’s Position
( )Statement on the First Accounting Course AECC, 1992 , innovations incurricula have certainly taken place. However, the impact of these inno-
( )vations on students remains unclear Saudagaran, 1996 . What is miss-ing from existing research is a sense of how students experience theirlearning of accounting, of what constitutes learning accounting for themand the way in which they understand accounting.
Phenomenographic Research into Students’ Experiences of Learning Withinthe Introductory Accounting Curriculum
Introduction
Given this lack of knowledge about the student’s experience of learningaccounting, a phenomenographic research study was designed to makeinitial enquiries into how students experience their learning of account-ing, of what constitutes learning accounting for them and the way inwhich they understand accounting. This section of the paper will explainthe nature of phenomenographic research in more detail and reportsome of the findings of a phenomenographic research study into stu-dents’ experiences of learning introductory accounting within the UKundergraduate curriculum.
The objectives of the study were to:
v identify key aspects of what constitutes ‘‘learning accounting’’ forstudents; and
v to identify students’ conceptions of accounting.
These were deliberately broad objectives since it was imperative thatpresumptions about students’ experiences of learning accounting shouldnot determine the nature of the investigation. The reasons for this arediscussed below.
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Phenomenography
Phenomenography is
‘‘ the empirical study of the limited3 number of qualitatively differentways in which various phenomena in, and aspects of, the world aroundus are experienced, conceptualized, understood, perceived and appre-
( )hended‘‘ Marton, 1994, p. 4424 .
This research method emerged from educational research carried outin Sweden in the late 1960s and early 1970s which took an experiential
( )or second-order perspective Marton, 1981 . It is now well-established( )and has resulted in widely-published findings. Prosser and Trigwell 1999
provide an excellent overview of these. When one reviews the develop-ment of phenomenography it is apparent that an explicit considerationof the phenomenographic method only emerged slowly through theproduction of a number of papers from 1981 onwards. These contributedto the articulation of phenomenography as a coherent research approach(Marton, 1981, 1994; Svensson & Theman, 1983; Johansson et al., 1985;
)Saljo, 1988; Prosser, 1993 . Further information about the processes( )involved in analysis is available in Svensson and Theman 1983 and
( )Ashworth and Lucas forthcoming .The experience, or lifeworld, of the student is the focus of enquiry.
( )Husserl 1970 used the term ’’lifeworld‘‘ to describe the world as( )encountered and lived in everyday life. Spurling 1977 describes it as
follows:
‘‘The Lebenswelt or life-world is the setting of our common-sense, dailyactivities; it is the world of familiar objects, routine tasks and mundaneconcerns. In the natural attitude we live in the life-world, and yet, underthe influence of scientific presuppositions, we apprehend it as ‘objective’and external to us, existing independently of our actions and interests’’( )p. 9 .
Phenomenography is thus a descriptive method. It is:
‘‘an approach that aims at answering the questions what and howsomething is, rather than why. The essence of what something is, isepistemologically prior to the question of why such and such is thecase, in the sense that the explanatory reasoning already implies an ideaof what the explained is as well as what it is explained by. Therefore iswe wish to know what we explain we must engage ourselves in the
(descriptive analysis of the phenomenon in question‘‘ Karlsson, 1993, p.)14 .
The emphasis is on experience that has been reflected on, to the extentthat it can be discussed and described by the experiencer. Consequentlythe design, conduct and analysis of interviews involves an intention bythe researcher to allow the student to reflect on his or her experienceand to bracket presuppositions about the nature of the phenomenonbeing investigated and to avoid the explicit prior construction of hy-
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potheses or interpretative categories. A failure to bracket would allowthe researcher’s lifeworld to take precedence over that of the student’s.Clearly any such attempt to bracket will only be partial in its success. Itis very difficult to set aside particular ways of viewing the world andimplicit personal beliefs. Consequently it is of value to counter suchtendencies by the development of an empathetic understanding of theindividual’s experience. Not all phenomenographic research has been
( )rigorous in its approach to bracketing Ashworth & Lucas, 1998 and afuller description of how engagement and empathy may be achieved is
( )described by Ashworth and Lucas forthcoming . The outcome of pheno-menographic research has normally been categories of description that
( )are logically and hierarchically related Marton, 1994 . However, theassumption that findings are necessarily logically and hierarchically re-
( )lated has been challenged and Ashworth and Lucas 1998 have arguedthat this should be bracketed. Consequently this research study had asits outcome the identification of broad themes which allow for the fullrichness of the students’ experiences to be preserved.
The research study
The aim of phenomenography is to obtain a range of experiences andconceptions so that similarities and differences between lifeworlds canbe fully explored. Consequently, any attempt to ’’sample‘‘ would bemisguided, involving as it does presumptions that certain kinds of indi-
4 (viduals may possess certain kinds of conceptions . Ten students volun-)teers were recruited for the interviews and all but one student had
studied the same first year introductory accounting course5. This ac-counting course is studied by large numbers of first year students as itforms part of a foundation year for students studying business-relatedsubjects. It was considered important that the students had studied thesame accounting course since this would provide data about the varietyof ways in which one course might be experienced by different stu-dents. The students were enrolled on different degree courses as fol-lows:
Students Degree course( )1,2,3,4,7 BA Accounting and Finance BAAF
( )5,6,8,9,10 BA Business Studies BABS
Clearly these volunteer students were self-selecting. However, followingthe interviews, it was not possible to identify any common feature tothese students that might indicate that, as a group, they might presenta restricted range of experience or conceptions. It appeared that therewas a sufficient element of repetition or reoccurrence of themes and
( )perceptions such that saturation had occurred Guba & Lincoln, 1988 .Background information was obtained about the course prior to its
selection. Students attend a one-hour lecture and a one-hour workshop
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each week. The course is assessed by a three-hour end of year exami-( ) ( )nation 70% weighting , one course-work project 15% weighting and
( )multiple-choice tests 15% weighting . Its key features comprise: an em-phasis on the development of conceptual understanding, the exclusion ofdouble-entry bookkeeping, an attempt to reduce the amount of computa-tion expected of the student, the use of case studies to emphasise theorganisational context within which accounting information is used andthe provision of an element of international accounting. This particular’’view‘‘ of the course was obtained through a review of the course
(materials and interviews with lecturers see Lucas, 1998 for further)detail . However, this knowledge of the course was bracketed during the
design and conduct of the interviews.The interview comprised two elements: each student was asked to
answer two specific accounting questions and was also asked about hisor her experience of learning accounting. The specific questions werepresented to the students in written form as follows:
The balance sheet of Log Ltd has the same net asset total at 1st January 1995and 31st December 1995. Assuming that Log Ltd has traded during the year,what could explain this?
Lesley is a sole trader retailing sports equipment. The business started up on1st January 1995. Lesley has just received the accounts for the year ended 31stDecember 1995 and has asked ’’My cash has reduced by £25,100 but there is aprofit of £15,000‘‘. Can you explain to Lesley why this is6?
‘‘Log’’ represented a more academic or technical question. It wasthought that the students might find this question difficult to answerand it was asked as much to observe how students went about answer-ing it as to ascertain whether they identified the ‘‘right’’ answer. ‘‘Les-ley’’ was designed for a slightly different purpose. It was intended touse this question as a vehicle to ascertain students’ conceptions of thevarious components/aspects of the balance sheet and profit and lossaccount. All questions and prompts were voiced in the context of whatLesley might ask or want to know, implying a relatively naive question-ing rather than a technical inquisition. The aim was to encourage thestudents to use their own words and express their own ways of view-ing accounting and the financial statements.
The remainder of each interview comprised a series of open-endedquestions about the student’s experience of learning accounting. Marton( )1986, p. 42 explains the phenomenographic approach to interviews asfollows:
‘‘We use questions that are as open-ended as possible in order to letthe subjects choose the dimensions of the question they want to an-swer. The dimensions they choose are an important source of databecause they reveal an aspect of the individual’s relevance structure.Furthermore, though we have a set of questions at the start of theinterview, different interviews may follow somewhat different courses‘‘( )author emphasis. See also Lybeck et al., 1988 .
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Thus the emphasis was on exploring aspects of learning accounting intheir broadest sense and being open-minded to all possible aspects ofthe subject being learnt. All students were asked a similar initial ques-tion, along the lines of: ’’How did you find/get on with the introductoryaccounting course?‘‘. Thereafter the interview was semi-structured, beingdesigned to elicit aspects of the experience of learning accounting andthe nature of accounting. Open-ended questions covered such aspectsas: students’ problems, concepts that underpin student learning, notionsof learning, learning activities, reasons for studying and lecturers’ at-tributes. However, the students’ interests and responses dictated muchof the shape and content of the interview and, inevitably, differentquestions were asked of different students. Most interviews lasted aboutforty-five minutes.
The analysis of the interviews was conducted with the aim of identify-ing broad themes rather than categories of description. This involvedseveral different, but iterative, elements. Transcripts were analysed on aword-by-word basis, with an emphasis on the meaning of the experi-ence for the student. An important feature of the analysis was thecompilation of an individual profile for each student which attempted todistil the central focus of each student’s experience.
The final stage of the analysis focussed on the identification of bothcommon and distinctive ways of experiencing the learning of accountingacross the students as a group.
The Findings
There were three key features that emerged from the experiences ofstudents. These are illustrated in Figure 1.
The experiences of seven students reveal a world of introductoryaccounting in which accounting is not seen to possess an inherentmeaning other than as a ’’subject to be passed‘‘. This need to pass theexamination was linked to the need to learn the technique of accountingand with a perception of accounting as a subject that was problematicand not relevant to the students’ immediate needs. This is a world ofdetachment, and some alienation from, accounting.
There was a common, but different, strand to the experience of the( )remaining three students 3, 6 and 7 . They were committed to the
course for reasons over and above just passing the subject and themeaning of accounting for them extended beyond this. Student 3 ac-tively related her learning to her part-time work and the business world.Student 6 was motivated by learning and engaging in higher educationgenerally. Student 7 was motivated by gaining skills and a qualificationthat could be applied in future employment. This is a world in whichthey engage with accounting.
For all students it was found that they possessed ’’alternative‘‘ concep-tions of accounting, in contrast with the ’’authorised‘‘ conceptions pro-pounded within the course. These alternative conceptions of events and
Worlds apart 487
Figure 1. The worlds of detachment, engagement and ‘‘alternative’’ views of accounting.
transactions are independent of the authorised conceptions and might onoccasion be substituted for, or provide alternatives to, the authorisedconceptions. However, crucially, students did not recognise that theseconceptions might be in opposition to the authorised conceptions. Thesefeatures will be discussed below in more detail.
Detachment: accounting constitutes a technique to be learnt
Most students experienced accounting as a technique to be learnt andconsequently saw accounting as constituting a technique. The studentsexpressed no uncertainty or confusion about what was expected ofthem. All students found the organisation of the course very clear, withdirect learning materials that provided them with reading for each sec-tion of the course and a clear programme of workshop questions andlecture handouts. Several commented on the high quality of the teach-ing materials. The direct learning material was regarded as central tothe course, as illustrated by the comments of Student 10:
‘‘Yes, the direct learning materials to me were vital I think. I know Ihad to constantly go back and catch up really. I think sometimespeople... you don’t realise how much you do need to read and keep upto date. I slipped about three weeks and had to go through the wholething, and then when I was revising again I just had to go through thewhole, all three booklets to make sure that I knew as much as I could’’( 7)10:38/43 .
A picture emerges of the course structure, direct learning materialsand workshop activities all leading in one direction: learning the tech-nique. Students recognised that lecturers might want them to understandthe concepts as well as the techniques. Nonetheless, there was an
U. Lucas488
explicit recognition that such broader objectives might be sidelined.Indeed, some students were so engaged with the notion of learning thetechnique, that they viewed the balance sheet in this process-drivenway. Consequently it would be described, not in terms of any inherentmeaning, but in terms of how it is ‘‘put together’’. Thus Student 2,when asked ‘‘if you were trying to describe to somebody who’s new toaccounting what does a balance sheet show, what would you say?’’,replied:
‘‘Um, basically I would go through the accounts and explain that you’regoing to have a set of figures which are going to equal X, and thenyou are going to say that you are going to have another set of figureswhich will be shareholders and how they finance it, and that the twoshould balance, and that if you don’t then you’ve got to go back, and
( )usually one side is easier to work out than the other‘‘ 2:57/8 .
Detachment: accounting constitutes a subject to be passed
The learning of the technique, however, was a means to an end. Themost distinctive meaning of accounting for students was that it consti-tuted a subject to be passed. Students spoke of this most forcefully.The need to pass the examination meant that conceptual understanding,whilst desirable, was a secondary aim. As Student 1 expressed it:
‘‘ there was no need to really think about it and be able to put intonew concepts and look at it in different ways. You were given the waysthat they were going to be presented to you in an exam and there was
( )never the need’’ 1:66/7 .
This means that course textbooks assume less importance and directlearning materials and workshops assumed greater importance:
‘‘I didn’t find the course text that useful. I found what we were given inthe direct learning material, although I mean you were just learning forthe exams. You were told that what you had in the workshops waswhat you were going to get in the exam, direct learning material leadsyou straight into the workshops so it was just looking at it from thatone view and all you want to do is get through your exam at the end
( )of the year, isn’t it?‘‘ 4:70/1 .
Passing the examination can become a finely-tuned operation, that ofdoing enough to pass but no more. As Student 9 expressed it:
‘‘my tutor said to us at the beginning of the course8 and then they saidit before on the full-time course... anything that was in the directlearning materials would be enough to give you a pass so because Ionly wanted a pass then I wasn’t prepared to go any further, and aslong as I understood what I needed to do to get that pass and I’ve had
( )my tutor and everything..’’ 9:107/9 .
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Figure 2. Student’s initial responses about the course.
Learning in this context becomes understanding what is needed topass. Thus it is not surprising if learning, in the absence of othermotivations, is defined in terms of the examination. Thus Student 5knows he has learnt something when:
‘‘Um, that’s it, getting 100% in an exam, you know, that’s a sign thatyou really understand it, I suppose, and you’re really well up on it. Um,I suppose from my point of view it’s just a case of knowing the rough...
[ ]the outlines of it... So I’ve probably not learnt, is probably not the( )best expression... attempting to learn... ‘‘ 5:58/9 .
Detachment: accounting is a problematic subject
This view of accounting as a subject to be passed and a technique tobe learnt was related to students’ views of accounting and its relevanceto them. Undoubtedly the subject of accounting was perceived to beproblematic. This was felt most strongly by the non-accounting, BABS,students. One of the first questions asked in the interview with eachstudent was ’’How did you find/get on with the introductory accountingcourse?‘‘ or its equivalent. The students’ immediate responses are givenin Figure 2.
For the BAAF students the focus was on the teaching process. This isnot surprising, since they would be unlikely to have chosen accountinghad they perceived the subject to be problematic. For the BABS stu-dents, however, their immediate focus was on the adverse nature of thesubject. This can be understood in the context of two other key aspectsof the students’ experience: preconceptions about accounting and therelevance of accounting.
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It is difficult to sum up the variety of students’ preconceptions in justa few headings. It is not that a student holds just one particularpreconception or another. Rather, a student’s view of accounting appearsto be a mixture of different preconceptions. Nonetheless, the key precon-ception was that accounting was about numbers and mathematics. Stu-dents either saw the positive or negative side of numbers. Some BAAFstudents chose accounting because they liked courses with numbers9.However, the BABS students very much took a negative attitude tonumbers. For example, Student 5 thought that accounting was:
[ ]‘‘a lot to do with numbers and managing firms’ accounts it’s a very( )complex thing’’ 5:4/5 .
He now concedes that:
[ ]‘‘it’s probably not as maths-based as I thought it would be probablysomeone who is going to do accounting for the first time shouldn’tthink it’s all calculations and number crunching, there’s a lot more to it
( )really, all the theories you know‘‘ 5:8/9 .
Similarly, Student 8 expressed her worries as follows:
‘‘I did expect it to be, like, all numbers and number crunching. Isuppose it wasn’t as much of that as I thought it was and maybe Ithought it would be harder than it actually was, maybe that’s whatstopped me from understanding it fully. Oh, I thought, it’s too hard, andwhen you think that you tend to sort of, like stay away from it’’( )8:31/5 .
Student 9 also thinks that accounting is to do with mathematics. Yetshe got lost in accounting:
[ ]‘‘Which is really strange because I’m quite mathematically minded( )but I just really couldn’t get to grips with it‘‘ 9:9/11 .
These extracts indicate that the students found the course to be lessnumber-based than they had expected. Yet, as will be described below,these preconceptions about accounting appear to survive their study ofaccounting intact.
Despite this emphasis on numbers, most students expressed a varietyof related preconceptions. Student 10 provides an good illustration ofthis when he talks as follows:
[ ]‘‘I was pleased to do accounting because I thought I’ve chosen thisbusiness studies module, um, because I don’t know what I want to doand I want to have the basis to leave university and be able to copewith whatever I’m going to... whatever’s going to be thrown at mewhen I leave university and start a career, so I was pleased when I did
( )accounting’’ 10:17 .
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‘‘I didn’t really know what to expect. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy. I( )knew it was going to be difficult..‘‘ 10:19/20 .
‘‘I do think with accounting, though, it does sound.... just the wordaccounting and you think: oh, I’ve got an accounting lecture, it soundsquite a dry subject, quite a dry.... for people who aren’t mathematicallyorientated and they aren’t thinking about: ‘my Dad’s an accountant,crikey, do I want to be one?’. It does sound quite a dull subject. It’squite easy to go into your lecture in a negative frame of mind...’’( )10:153/6 .
A striking feature was the extent to which three of the studentsretained their preconceptions of accounting even though, as they con-fided, some of these preconceptions were ill-founded. It is not surprisingthat the BAAF students did not comment on this, committed as theywere to continuing with a specialist accounting degree. However, five ofthe students were on the BABS degree. Of these, three were inter-viewed after they had completed the course. It is these three studentswho commented on their preconceptions.
Student 8 again admits that accounting is not necessarily about num-bers but, nonetheless, she avoided choosing accounting courses in hersecond year:
[ ]‘‘I think many accounting students think it’s all numbers anyway.Like I thought it would be numbers and maths, but if anything I wassurprised at how there were other aspects that weren’t numbers, thatwere, you know you had to write essays, I’ve written two essays now,so I don’t think we are drowned in numbers, um, I think it’s probably a
[surprise to students that there isn’t as much. Interviewer: But you still] [ ]think about it as a numbers based...? You do. Even though it says,
like, when we were choosing our modules in this handbook, this does( )not... this doesn’t involve numbers, but you still think... Laugh ... well I
[ ] ( )did. And a lot of other people, so....‘‘ 8:141/6 .
Students 9 and 10 also refer to the fact that they will not chooseaccounting as an option. Student 9 sums up the position for all three ofthem when she says:
‘‘Um, I purposely chose my options so that I wouldn’t have anything todo with accounts or numbers in any way whatsoever for this particular
( )year’’ 9:113/114 .
Detachment: accounting lacks immediate relevance
As well as seeing the subject as problematic, most students distancedthemselves from accounting and did not perceive it to be immediately
(relevant. Certain individual topics within the course such as cash flow)and costing held some inherent interest for some students but this was
not a key aspect of the course for them. The most important aspect of
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relevance was that students perceived accounting to be important totheir future career in business. However, this emerged more as anarticle of faith on the part of the students since they expressed nopersonal attachment to accounting itself.
This occurred even with BAAF students who might have been ex-pected to be more committed to accounting’s relevance. For example,Student 1 decided to enrol on the BAAF degree because she recognisedthe importance of accounting knowledge within a business career. But,even so, the accounting that she finds in the course appears to be too
[ ]simple and difficult to relate to the complexity of the ‘‘real world,( )the normal world’’ 1:83 . She would like to use it in a more practical
sense but is unable to do so.Student 10 accepts the future relevance of accounting but this does
not affect his view of accounting now:
‘‘Oh yes. I mean I knew from the beginning that accounting was goingto be very relevant to what I was going to be doing in 5 to 10 years
[ ]time or what have you. Interviewer: ‘‘but not currently interesting?’’ .( )Not currently interesting, no‘‘ 10:158/9 .
Similarly, Student 9 puts off the day when she will have to engagewith accounting, She reflects:
‘‘I know realistically and everything that if I do want to establish my[ ]own business then I am going to have to go back to accounts I
know I’m going to have to try and get to grips with it and put all my( )fears aside. One day’’ 9:111/112 .
In fact, for some students, relevance was not an important issue. Ac-counting was seen to possess a logic and coherence of its own whichmade any appeal to relevance redundant. Instead an appeal was madeto the logic of accounting. Student 4 reflected on why accountingpossesses this appeal:
‘‘I suppose it’s sort of having completeness, learning something, putting( )it into practice knowing you can get a right answer‘‘ 4:12 .
Accounting problems appear to be discrete and solvable in contrast withother subjects. For example, Student 1 reflects:
‘‘I enjoyed it because I like to be able to be set a problem and be ableto do the whole thing, I’m not very good at rambling away at essays
( )and everything’’ 1:11 .
So these students focus on the technique and relevance becomes redun-dant.
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Engagement
The features described above represent aspects of the detached world ofaccounting. Yet three students viewed the course in a fundamentallydifferent way. They engaged with the world of accounting. They relatedwhat they learnt to their own personal relevancies whether it be busi-ness, learning or career. For example, Student 3 relates accounting tothe world around her and she acts independently so that she can makesense of the subject in her own terms. Although she has previouslystudied some accounting:
‘‘ there were new things cropping up all the time like there always is,and so I felt that anything that I didn’t perhaps understand when I wasdoing the BTEC10, suddenly all clicked when I was there, and it did its
( )job‘‘ 3:28 .
She acts independently, for example:
‘‘Although you’re not being told everything it gives you the chance tobuild up your own views on things and also to give you the chance to
( )go and read up more about it....’’ 3:33 .
She reads around the subject through texts and newspapers and, as forthe tutors:
if there was something you didn’t understand you just go and see( )them‘‘ 3:35 .
The workshops are seen as helpful, providing motivation and dealingwith anything that wasn’t understood. Student 3 relates her learning towhat she terms ’’the real world‘‘. For example:
11 [ ]‘‘Scanning through the ABI Inform , you can see the real lifesituation which I’ve always preferred, and you think well, Oh, I can
( )understand it now, I can see why companies are doing this’’ 3:89 .
By way of contrast Student 6 relates accounting to her commitmentto learning and to higher education. She enjoys being in higher educa-tion and she contrasts it with what she might otherwise be doing( )looking after her young family or earning a low wage . For her learn-ing is:
‘‘ just being in an environment where you’re being given informationwhich is interesting to you which broadens your view of things, whichbroadens your understanding of things and it develops your own perso-
( )nality‘‘ 6:25 .
She experiences difficulties in learning accounting and these are ex-pressed in technique related terms:
U. Lucas494
( )‘‘ the problem with accounting is knowing where everything goes’’ 6:47 .
Yet what characterises Student 6 is that, despite this, she does notfocus on learning the technique. Whilst she is not comfortable with theaccounting figures12, she is much more at ease when she explains whatfinancial statements show. She sees herself as fairly confident aboutdescribing how a balance sheet can be used, this is ‘‘better than trying
( )to write one down’’ 6:53 . Indeed, Student 6 talks confidently as sheexplains Lesley’s financial statements. Moreover, she recalls a questionwithin the course that she found particularly interesting:
[ ]‘‘There was one question }how do you explain the meaning of true( )costs? tape fault ... which wasn’t the complete right answer, but I gave
a more indepth look. I looked at the environmental point as well as theaccounting side, that, you know, how can you calculate the true costs of
( )some of the things that we do if there are lots of health risks....‘‘ 6:34 .
Student 7 relates her studies to her previous work experience and futurecareer. She sees it as important to understand the theories underlyingaccounting:
[ ]‘‘nowadays we only have to understand the concept or theories Itmay not be necessary to record the transaction by themselves so, I
[ ]mean, in course title the theory.... the knowledge is more important( )than the techniques’’ 7:105.108 .
But moving on beyond theory, she identifies how accounting relatesto real situations. For example, she recalls an instance where a lecturerused a practical example that
‘‘ the theories, um, apply the theories in a real situation like I rememberone of the lecturers, she mentioned if you have some money, how youinvest or invest in the company shares or... how can you decide whichshares you are going to buy? So she applied interpretation of accounts
( )techniques there‘‘ 7:38/9 .
Presumably, this lecturer’s approach was less meaningful for some ofthe other students.
It can be seen, therefore, that three students studying this introductoryaccounting course perceive the subject as relevant. They see it as acourse where they can develop their own understanding and their ownviews. This is in stark contrast to the detached, and somewhat alien-ated, world of the remaining seven students.
Retaining ‘‘alternative’’ conceptions of accounting
As the questions Log and Lesley were discussed in the interview it wasapparent that most students demonstrated a relatively poor understand-ing, in an ’’authorised‘‘ or textbook sense, of accounting concepts. Forexample, only one student was able to explain why Log might have the
Worlds apart 495
same net asset total at the beginning and the end of the year. Nonethe-less, all these students had either passed the course at the time of theirinterview or would do so13.
Yet a most interesting feature that cut across both worlds of account-ing was the way in which students possessed and retained ’’alternative‘‘conceptions of accounting. These alternative conceptions of events andtransactions were independent of the authorised conceptions and mighton occasion be substituted for, or provide an alternative to, the autho-rised conceptions. Moreover, whilst students held these conceptions, theydid not recognise that these conceptions were in opposition with theauthorised conceptions provided within the course or that they hadencountered problems in understanding those authorised conceptions.
These alternative conceptions of accounting took two forms. In thefirst, students attached significance to aspects of the business whichwere not reflected in the financial statements or recognised by account-ing. Yet students took this exclusion for granted. Student 2 found nocontradiction in the fact that financial statements do not include all thecosts of running a business.
‘‘... if you put the hours in and you’re a sole trader, I think it’s one of[ ]those things. It’s one of those things I learnt about our business in
[ ]overseas country , and you get a set wage and that’s it. My brotherworks 20 hours a week, and I work 75, you put the hours in, and that’sjust the way it goes. If you want your business to succeed and you dowhat you have to do. It’s not a case of saying how does it show the
( )hours I’ve actually put into it’’ 2:95 .
Here, he reflects on the realities of working in a small business butdoes not question a set of financial statements which do not recognisethe hours ‘‘put in’’ when indicating, in numerical terms, what resourceshave been consumed for the ‘‘business to succeed’’. This student thinksin one set of terms in relation to his experience of working in a familybusiness, and in another when compiling a set of financial statements.
Similarly, on a related note, Student 3 recognises that there arebenefits beyond those represented by assets in the balance sheet:
‘‘Well I mean um, the benefit of being a sole trader is that you’re yourown boss, you can, alright you’ve got all the trouble of VAT andeverything but you’ve got power over what happens in the shop, youcan do what you like with it, you’re not being told what to do‘‘( )3:62/65 .
Here she recognises that one might not expect a ’’normal‘‘ rate ofreturn on one’s investment in a business, given that there are otherless tangible benefits. But again, she thinks in one set of terms inrelation to her father’s experience of running his own business andanother in relation to the evaluation of business success in accountingterms.
In the second form, students described conceptions of profit, cash anddepreciation that were at variance with the authorised conceptions. These
U. Lucas496
understandings appear to relate to an ’’everyday‘‘ understanding of ac-counting phenomena. For example, Student 2, in describing the profitand loss account, commented that it:
‘‘gives you your net profit for the year, but obviously that’s just the( )paper profit’’ 2:89/90 .
When asked, ‘‘You said paper profit, do you mean there’s a real profitsomewhere?’’, he refers to cash spending:
( )‘‘There may... thing is, it depends what she’s spent really‘‘ 2:90 .
He goes on to talk generally about cash movements. At a later point inthe interview he was asked again about ’’paper profit‘‘ and his responsewas as follows:
‘‘I mean basically you’ve got a gross profit which is in, which is... youactually do have a gross profit if you haven’t got a gross profit thenthere’s no point being there. And then you’ve got your expenses so thegross profit... that’s her profit for the year, but if people will I think lookto say: ‘well, OK, well I’ve made this profit for the year £15,000 whereis it?’ And it’s obviously not in the bank, because she would haveexpected to find that she put this £50,000 in to the bank, she spent Xand then she would have expected it to go up again. Or the other wayof looking at it is that she’s introduced £50,000 of capital there, she’sspent £40,000 there, which would leave her £10,000, if profit is actuallyas it seems, that’s all coming to the bank, so £15,000, so it would be
( ) ( )£25,000, she is owed or owes.. long pause ’’ 2:96/7 .
It appeared that Student 2 sees profit as ‘‘paper profit’’ and cash as‘‘real profit’’. Profit may be recorded in the profit and loss account butStudent 2 says ‘‘where is it?’’; for him ‘‘real profit’’ is in the bank.Thus Student 2, an accounting student who is quite familiar with thefinancial statements and who answers questions with technically ‘‘cor-rect’’ answers, also distinguishes between profit and cash as being‘‘paper profit’’ and ‘‘real profit’’ respectively.
Student 10, who is less familiar with the financial statements andstruggles to explain them, also expressed similar conceptions of cashand profit:
‘‘The profit is the overall, um, monetary increase that she has gained,so she hasn’t made a loss, she’s done better than breaking even. She’sgained money from the sales of whatever, um, at the end of the yearand that money is spare and then cash is much vaguer, it’s more... itdoesn’t mean profit at all. Cash could mean that she’s been given cashbut it doesn’t mean that it’s a profit at all. She might have to pay offsomething else and just because she’s been given cash it doesn’t meanto say that it’s a profit at all. That’s quite a vague definition that
( )probably wouldn’t...‘‘ 10:138/140 .
Student 10 reverses the traditional descriptions of cash and profit. Itappears that Student 10 sets himself a problem at the start of his
Worlds apart 497
description by referring to profit as a ’’monetary increase‘‘. This repre-sents cash at the bank and is a physically tangible concept. Thus, he isleft with a ’’vaguer‘‘ description for cash.
What Students 2 and 10 appear to have in common is an identifica-tion of a strong performance concept such as ’’profit‘‘ with a strongtangible concept such as ’’money in the bank‘‘. Yet the authorisedversion of profit is an abstract concept which requires careful definitionand is not necessarily represented by tangible assets. Whereas Student2 holds these conceptions alongside the authorised version of profit andcash, Student 10 appears not to have engaged with the authorisedversion at all.
A further example of this arose when several students expressed apersonal view of assets which led to a conception of depreciation atvariance with the authorised conception. In accounting terms, deprecia-tion is the allocation of part of the cost of a fixed asset to anaccounting period in recognition that the asset has a finite economiclife. However, some students related depreciation solely to loss of valueand did not refer to the finite economic life. In particular, depreciationwas connected with a writing-down to a second-hand value. This was anotion with which students readily engaged. Thus typically, Student 1explains the need for depreciation as follows:
‘‘Well she’s obviously bought some equipment that she wouldn’t be ableto sell on, whether it be a ‘phone or whatever, but once they’re usedand secondhand.., they’re not going to be, so to value them at whatshe bought them for would be unrealistic because she wouldn’t ever be
( )able to get that amount of money back for them’’ 1:75 .
What emerges from this encounter with the lifeworlds of students isan alternative view of events and transactions which is independent ofthe authorised conceptions. These arise from the students’ everydayexperience of life but they do not recognise that these conceptionscontrast with the academic view of accounting encountered on thecourse.
Discussion and Conclusions
A review of the findings
Two contrasting worlds of accounting are revealed by this phenomeno-graphic research study: a world of detachment and a world of engage-ment. The different aspects of the detached world of introductory ac-counting reinforce each other such that, for most students, learningaccounting is about learning a technique and accounting is seen to be atechnique. Students are primarily motivated to pass the examination.They express no doubts about what is required to achieve this, theymust work through the learning materials and learn the techniques. This
U. Lucas498
perception of what is required fits in clearly with their preconceptionsabout accounting, that it is about numbers. Moreover, in the absence ofany immediate relevance of accounting to them, it becomes a merearticle of faith that accounting will eventually be relevant in their futurecareers. For some students this lack of relevance is overcome as theyimmerse themselves in what is for them the more appealing aspect ofaccounting} its logic and the fact that there is a ‘‘right’’ answer. Byway of contrast, the world of engagement shows that some studentsare able to engage with accounting and relate it to their own personalrelevancies. For them, the course is one in which they can develop theirunderstanding of accounting and of the world.
Yet is also found that students, whether engaged or detached, re-siliently retain alternative conceptions of accounting alongside, or insubstitution for, the authorised conceptions propounded by their account-ing course. Significantly, the students do not recognise that these alter-native conceptions may conflict with the authorised conceptions.
Pedagogical implications of these findings
These findings, to an extent, confound intuitive expectations. For exam-ple, accounting students do not necessarily fall into the world of en-gagement as one might expect. Of the five accounting students, twoengage with the learning of accounting and three do not. Previousphenomenographic research is confirmed which indicates that studentsstudying the same course may perceive it in radically different ways.
( )For example, Prosser 1993 provides a fascinating example of twostudent accounts of the same lecture: one student describes an episodein discovery learning whereas the second student describes an hour oftaking down notes geared at passing the examination.
It is not the purpose of phenomenographic research to uncover whystudents view accounting in particular ways. Indeed, it is important thatany intention to establish cause is set-aside during interview and analy-sis14. It is surely enough to know that they do see it in different ways.For the identification of the contrasting worlds of engagement anddetachment and the existence of alternative conceptions of accountingraise important issues about how we view and conceptualise the intro-ductory accounting curriculum and provide a foundation for further re-search into causes and impacts; into motivation, relevance and theimpact of these different experiences on approaches to learning, and theunderstanding of, accounting. These issues relate to how accountingeducators engage with students, how students might be encouraged torecognise their own perspectives and how accounting is presented tostudents.
Firstly, it is proposed that an accounting educator should seek toacknowledge and engage with the students’ own worlds of accounting.Anecdotally, we may assemble a catalogue of complaints about somestudents: they are lazy, do not work hard enough, cannot be bothered
Worlds apart 499
to read around the subject and only look for a figure that will allow thebalance sheet to balance. We could, alternatively, ask ourselves: ‘‘Is itpossible that a student sees accounting in such a way that such be-haviour is perfectly reasonable?’’ That is, that the student sees account-ing as primarily a technique, a subject to be passed, lacking relevanceand is immune to our appeals to conceptual understanding. The educa-tor could be open to the idea that students may look at the world in
(individual ways, i.e. have varying orientations towards the world van)Manen, 1977 . Van Manen envisages that ‘‘co-oriental grasping’’ should
be built into the teacher-learner relationship where one person partakesin the ‘‘orientation’’ of another. He states:
‘‘it is not enough simply to make use of an orientation. One mustunderstand the experience of having an orientation and of having aspecific one. The teacher must also know how an orientation is beingused. Questions the teacher must ask himself should refer to the natureof the student orientation: ‘What kind of reality do young people livein?’ ‘What is the nature of their beliefs?’, ‘What is considered valuableand important within their orientation toward their social world?’. Closeexamination of an individual’s projects and actions makes possible thephenomenological study of the relationship of the experiencing individual
( )to his physical and social world‘‘ p. 213 .
An important issue here, is the need for lecturers to empathise withthe experience of students. The earlier review of the phenomenographicmethod has highlighted the importance of empathetic understanding onthe part of the phenomenographic researcher who wishes to enter thelifeworld of the student. Yet it can also be argued that empathy is also
( )an important requirement for the teacher. Rogers 1980 argues thatempathetic understanding is of crucial importance within education:
‘‘When the teacher has the ability to understand each student’s reactionsfrom the inside, has a sensitive awareness of how the process ofeducation and learning seems to the student, then, again, the likelihood
(that significant learning will take place is increased’’ author emphasis, p.)272 .
The need for co-oriental grasping is particularly important in tworespects. Firstly, students’ preconceptions predispose them to view ac-counting in a certain way. This is clearly no surprise. However, thesefindings indicate the power of such preconceptions in affective terms.Such preconceptions should be ‘‘re-viewed’’ and regarded, not as irratio-nal, unreasonable or something to be ‘‘overcome’’ but as something tobe ‘‘acknowledged’’ within the classroom. This does not necessarilyrequire more of the educator’s time but requires that it is spent differ-ently as discussed below.
Secondly, co-oriental grasping is particularly necessary given the exis-tence of alternative views of accounting. Students express these alterna-tive views alongside, or in preference to, the authorised version ofaccounting. But they are not aware that they do so. It is well accepted
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within the educational literature that education should take students’( )preinstructional knowledge into consideration. As Ausubel 1968 states:
‘‘ the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner( )already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly‘‘ p. vi .
Yet, for accounting this is problematic. What the student ’’knows‘‘ willconsist of preconceptions about the subject, everyday notions of whataccounting terminology means as well as, possibly, a knowledge gainedfrom a previous study of accounting. These are likely to be powerfulimages in the sense that they are not explicitly acknowledged as apreinstructional ’’knowledge‘‘ of accounting. A limitation of this particularstudy was that it took, as its starting point, two rather ’’academic‘‘questions from which to gain an understanding of students’ conceptionsof accounting. It is now clear that there will be much to be gainedfrom a further study which seeks to ascertain more ’’everyday‘‘ notionsof accounting. Further, accounting educators can be on the alert forthese alternative conceptions and acknowledge them, not as incorrectviews, but as views that are coherent and meaningful for the student inparticular context. Faced with such ’’misconceptions‘‘ the educator cansee this as an opportunity, not to pronounce a conception as incorrect,but to enter a dialogue with the student by posing the question: ’’whydoes academic accounting not take this view?‘‘. Not only can the educa-tor enter into this dialogue with the students but he or she canencourage students to compare their views and understandings of ac-counting with each other.
For the accounting educator who wishes to review his or her teachingapproach, there are a variety of sources to support this endeavour. For
( ) ( )example, Prosser 1993 and Prosser and Trigwell 1997 show howconfronting both students and lecturers with the variety of conceptionsheld, and assisting them in identifying for themselves their conceptionsof subject matter, can be of value in teaching and learning. Ramsden et
( )al. 1993 point out that:
‘‘insights into students’ conceptions are one of the foundations of suc-cessful curriculum development, class teaching and valid assessment
( )methods’’ p. 304 .
( )They refer to the work of: Roth and Anderson 1988 who illustratehow teachers may use a knowledge of students’ typical misconceptionsin the classroom to help students develop their understanding in physics
( )and biology, Neuman 1987 whose work on conceptions of numbers ledto the development of more successful teaching approaches in mathe-
( )matics and White 1988 whose changes to teaching materials based onan understanding of misconceptions of velocity led to remarkable gainsfor children taking part in the program. Similarly, the findings of Lybeck
( )et al. 1988 on students’ understandings of the ‘‘mole’’ concept inchemistry highlighted conceptual confusions residing in textbooks.
Worlds apart 501
However, whilst co-oriental grasping is argued to be a necessary partof the introductory accounting curriculum, this alone may be insufficientto lead to significant learning. Given the stubborn resistance to changeof these students’ alternative conceptions of accounting, it may be ofvalue to view learning not as a change in a person’s understanding of
( )a phenomenon or a particular aspect of reality Johansson et al., 1985( )but as a change in a person’s relationship with a context Linder, 1993 .
Linder, in considering student learning, does not consider the everydayconceptions that students possess to be a problem. Nor is he concernedwith students’ resistance to changing their conceptions.
‘‘Because it would appear natural for a person to construct a variety ofconceptions of phenomena, what would then seem to be important isthe ability to recognize a context and, in terms of this recognition, evokean appropriate conception. So, instead of depicting meaningful learning interms of conceptual change we should consider depicting it in terms of
( )conceptual appreciation‘‘ p. 295, emphasis added .
Lecturers, and students, might recognise that it is perfectly acceptableto possess two distinct understandings of depreciation. In a ’’personal‘‘context when buying a used car, a student might use one conception of
( )depreciation which reduces cost to net realisable value and in a ’’busi-(ness‘‘ context use another which reduces cost to net book value but
)not necessarily to net realisable value . One of these might be accept-able in an authorised sense and one might not. Both educator andstudent would need to consider the difference between understandingaccounting in an everyday sense and understanding accounting in adisciplinary sense.
If one views of learning as contextual appreciation, then the teachingof introductory accounting requires a much more explicit recognition ofthe different contexts within which accounting might have meaning forstudents. Students should be encouraged to recognise the way in whichthey, and others, use accounting terms in different ways in differentcontexts. It is interesting to note that this would also involve theteaching of authorised accounting as a specific way of viewing the world
( )and might involve a confrontation of the authorised view s with alterna-tive views held by students and others. It would acknowledge thateveryday views of accounting concepts have their own power and reso-nance but that they also stand alongside, and in contrast with, autho-rised views of accounting. This would inevitably draw attention to thesocial context in which accounting takes place and raise key issuesabout the adequacy of accounting to represent key events affecting the
( )organisation and community Hines, 1988 .
Conclusions
This paper has sought to identify an alternative research approach foruse within accounting education. Applied within the introductory account-
U. Lucas502
ing curriculum, it has identified the contrasting worlds of engagementand detachment and highlighted the significance of alternative concep-tions of accounting. Students experience the learning of accounting infundamentally different ways and this raises important issues for ac-counting educators. It is proposed that the teaching of introductoryaccounting should seek to acknowledge, and enter into, the students’own worlds of accounting. Furthermore, it is argued that a new objec-tive is required: that students should be able to recognise the differentcontexts in which accounting is used and the different terminologies,meanings and significances associated with those contexts.
We clearly need to experiment with curricular changes. Not only doaccounting educators need to review the way in which they teach andinteract with students, but as researchers we need to consider the waysin which we can assess the impact of such changes. There is also aneed for further phenomenographic research within introductory account-ing. The value of this study lies in the overview that it provides of thediffering worlds of students. In so doing, it identifies an agenda forfurther research. Studies are now required on specific aspects of theexperiences of students, for example, on the nature of student precon-ceptions, perceptions of relevance and understandings of accountingwithin an everyday context. Having identified these differing worlds we
(now need to continue the process of their ’’mapping‘‘ Marton, 1988, p.)180 .
Notes
1. Or elementary accounting, as it is generally referred to in the United States of( )America US .
2. That consciousness is always consciousness of ’’something‘‘ and learning is alwaysthe learning of ’’something‘‘.
3. The assumption of a limited number of ways in which a phenomenon might beexperienced can be contested given that every experience is individual. Such alimitation is imposed by the researcher.
4. To endeavour to obtain a cross-section of students, with equal numbers of male andfemale students or a range of grades, assumes that there may be a gender or abilityaspect to the perceptions of students.
5. The student had studied a similar first year introductory accounting course at thesame university prior to moving into the second year of the accounting degree.
6. The question Lesley was supported by a balance sheet and profit and loss account.7. The transcript reference refers to the student number and the numbered meaning unit
from which the quotation is extracted.8. At the beginning of a part-time course since she failed the full-time course at her
first and second attempts.9. Indeed, Student 4 initially enrolled on the BABS degree course but changed to the
BAAF degree at the end of the first year because she preferred the courses withnumbers.
10. A previous vocational qualification.11. A business research database.12. It is of interest that, despite her clear motivation to understand, this student struggled
with the computational aspects of accounting and only achieved a bare pass.13. The marks were distributed as follows: 80 or over: 2; 70]79:2; 60]69:3; 50]59:2;
40]49:1.14. Students sometimes referred to ’’causes‘‘ of their experience. However, whilst these
(assumptions about the causes of their experiences which have no bearing on the
Worlds apart 503
)questions of the ’’real cause‘‘ of the experience might be a valuable aspect of themeaning of the experience for them, and should be carefully heard by the researcher,it would be a distortion to import the researcher’s notions of cause-and-effect into thedescription of the experience.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Englandand Wales CATER Fund trustees for their financial support of this research andtwo anonymous referees for their helpful and constructive comments.
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