Lecturing Proficiency and Effectiveness of New Zealand Accounting and Finance Academics

• In Event: Teaching, Learning and Curriculum 4

Abstract

This paper examines how accounting and finance academics can improve their proficiency and effectiveness as teachers. The notion of improving proficiency and effectiveness is conceptualised in terms of enhancing student-learning outcomes. Guided by both the literature and the findings from a series of eight focus group sessions involving 43 university undergraduates, a research instrument capable of examining factors associated with student learning satisfaction and learning effectiveness was designed. This survey was administered to a sample of 548 students from two different universities. The research findings provided supporting evidence for the importance of a set of nine student satisfaction and learning effectiveness themes: teacher empathy, teacher communication, teaching supplied learning material, teacher involvement, teacher learning support, textbook support, peer support, physical learning space, and the general learning environment. While all nine themes were given high importance by the surveyed students, statistically significant differences existed in the themes’ relative importance. In particular, teacher-based themes (i.e., teacher empathy, teacher communication, teaching supplied learning material, teacher involvement, teacher learning support) rated higher than non-teacher factors (i.e., textbook support, peer support, physical learning space, and the general learning environment). It was further found that gender, student major, and university attended influenced the ratings students provided. Females, accounting major, and undergraduates at the larger university rated the nine themes higher than males, non-accounting majors, and undergraduates at the smaller university, respectively. In general, the correlations between the nine student satisfaction and learning effectiveness themes and students’ learning approaches and learning styles were found to be insignificant and/or possessing small effect sizes. However, at the subgroup level, statistically significant and moderate effect sizes were uncovered. Female students, both accounting and non-accounting, were found to have significant positive correlations between the nine themes and their learning approaches and learning styles. Meanwhile a general lack of association was observed for males.

Authors

• Ralph Adler, University of Otago

• Neil Crombie, University of Canterbury

• Keith Dixon, University of Canterbury

• Helen Roberts, University of Otago