Empirical essays on team learning in accounting education

摘要

Students’ completion rates are of great importance across Europe. It is recognized that students who not complete their programme create financial problems for their parents, future employers and the university. Cooperative learning is found to increase students’ retention and completion rates. Team learning is one of the most thoroughly evaluated cooperative learning techniques. This doctoral dissertation focuses on the effectiveness of team learning, compared to traditional lecture-based learning in accounting education. Team learning is an educational method that combines interactive small group learning with lecture-based content delivery. The setting is a group of undergraduates at the university, where students have the choice either to attend the tutorials in a team or a lecture-based setting.The first study explores the effectiveness of team learning, under the condition that participating in team learning was voluntary for the students. Students’ preference for team learning compared to lecture-based learning and its effectiveness, are scrutinized. It is stipulated that a specific group of students opts for team learning. Team learning results in increased performance. Consequently, team learning offers an appropriate learning method at the university level. The second study goes further by investigating the satisfaction and the course experiences of first year undergraduate accounting students. Course experiences and satisfaction, as perceived by students in the team learning condition, are in a quantitative and qualitative analysis compared to those in a traditional lecture-based control condition. This study reveals that team learning has the potential to enhance students’ satisfaction and learning experiences. Moreover, an increased time spent on accounting in the team learning condition results in increased learning, as evidenced by the higher academic performance in the team learning condition. The third study focusses on the team learning students in particular. This empirical study compares the effect of group composition on the academic performance and on the learning process. Students are classified as low- or high-ability students. As a result, three types of groups can be distinguished (homogeneous low-ability teams, heterogeneous teams and homogeneous high-ability teams). The differential effect of group composition was investigated, both for the high- and low-ability students separately. This study reveals that heterogeneous teams are more beneficial for low-ability students. High-ability students encounter no detrimental effects of cooperating with low-ability peers.