An EHEA implementation experience in management accounting: a longitudinal analysis of the impact of the use of empirical-based case studies in motivation, skills development and technical content

AN EHEA IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF THE USE OF EMPIRICALBASED CASE STUDIES IN MOTIVATION, SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNICAL CONTENT Antonio Lobo Gallardo [email protected] 954556045 Bernabé Escobar Pérez [email protected] José Luis Arquero Montaño [email protected] Departamento de Contabilidad y Economía Financiera Universidad de Sevilla ÁREA: ECONOMÍA Y EMPRESA ABSTRACT Accounting bodies and relevant stakeholders have questioned the suitability of traditional educational approaches to face the strategic challenges induced by social demands; concluding that communication, group working and problem-solving skills appear to be at least as important as ‘technical’ knowledge for their professional future. In the Spanish context, the implementation of the EHEA should have been a key milestone in order to redirect accounting education objectives, by including complex competencies composed by knowledge, skills and values (in line with stakeholders opinions). The paper objective is to study the influence of a pedagogical strategy consisting on the use of empiricallybased case studies on content learning, skills development, and students’ attitudes. This longitudinal experiment has been carried out in the subject Management Accounting for Tourism Organizations (MATO), from 2004 to 2008 academic courses. The instrument consists of a Self-assessment questionnaire previously validated by Arquero and others. (2004) and by Escobar and Lobo (2007). The sample is composed by the students enrolled in Management Accounting subject who had taken part in the innovative activity across those years (2004 – 2008). The obtained evidence suggests that there is a strong influence on students´ motivation, improvements in content learning, and, above all, non-technical skills development when using empirically-based case studies elaborated by students from real companies’ information as a innovative pedagogical strategies. Key Words: Non-Technical Skills, Empirically-Based Case Study, European Higher Education System, Longitudinal Study, Management Accounting for Tourism Organizations. 497 1.- INTRODUCTION Immerses in the adaptation process of the Spanish University to the EEES that should be concluded in 2010 (Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, 2003) this work has its origin in the Pilot Experience for the Implantation of the ECTS developed in the Management of Tourism Businesses (MTB) degree. In line with the Bologna Declaration (1999) and with the professional accounting bodies statements (among others, AICPA, 1998; AECC, 1990, IFAC, 1996 & 2003), we understood that the role of educators should not be limited to the formal adaptation of the ECTS, but to take advantage of the change to design a solid basis that facilitate our students to develop the desired competencies, including lifelong learning, in a complex technical environment. Tourism sector is especially relevant in Spain. According to data provided by the Institute of Tourism Studies (2008), tourism in Spanish generates revenues of 51,100 million dollars, which represents approximately 11% of GDP (Economic News, 2008). Also, the tourism balance of payments showed a surplus of 27,444 million Euros in 2006, helping to partially offset the trade deficit, and gave jobs to 1,357,000 people in 2005 (INE, 2008). Due to the relevance of this sector, a specific degree was introduced by the RD 604/1996, which established the Diploma Management of Tourism Businesses (MTB hereinafter), and the basic curriculum guidelines. The main purpose of this degree is indicated as follows: “to provide theoretical and practical training appropriate to the management of organizations and institutions related to tourism”. In the University of Seville, Management Accounting for Tourism Organizations (MATO hereinafter) is a compulsory subject, taught in the second year of the degree with a clear professional and practical orientation. The main objectives of the subject are related to the gathering, elaboration, communication and use of accounting information for management purposes. These functions require that, in addition to professional expertise (Accounting, Business Organization, Information Systems, etc.) the students should also develop critical thinking, communication and teamwork skills. These skills (Hassall and others, 2005) should be developed along with the technical knowledge throughout university education. In order to achieve the combined development of knowledge and skills, the use of empirically-based case studies is an appropriate tool (Cullen and others, 2004). 498 In the present paper, we present the results of a longitudinal extensive experience of educational innovation carried out during the academic years 2004-2005 to 2007-2008 in the MATO subject. This innovation consisted on the development of group case studies by students, and the main objectives of the innovation were the improvement of the development of non-technical skills, content learning and motivation. 2. BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIENCE According to the Bologna Declaration (1999) the skills to develop are basically: (1) Transversals or basics, relating with education of persons required for a wide range of professional activities and (2) Specifics which should enable the integration within the labour market in a specific area. In the same line, there are numerous statements highlighting the growing importance of nontechnical skills related to the accounting profession (see Hassall and others, 2005). Several pieces of research, from the area of Business Administration (Dacko, 2006; Evans, 2008) and Accounting (Milner and Hill, 2007; Hassall and others, 2005; Arquero and others, 2001) agree that oral and written communication, teamwork and problem solving are the most important skills for future graduates. Despite the skills to be developed are known by universities, in Spain there is still a significant gap between educational outcomes and current needs as perceived by employers. Those opinions are expressed by employers, managers and alumni in the external assessment reports for management university degrees (Escobar and Lobo, 2004). The reduction of this gap, of great importance in general terms (Ottewill and Macfarlane, 2003), is key for Accounting, due that it is an applied discipline professionally oriented, in which closer relationships between students, teaching staff and profession could lead to a mutual enrichment (Escobar and Lobo, 2008). In order to reduce the mentioned gap, we have implemented a teaching strategy characterized by: (1) encouraging in the students a more active role in their own learning process (Marcelo, 1995); (2) the guidance of students' learning to the understanding and practical application of concepts by a combination of individual and group work in real setting experiences (Mayor, 1995); (3) the integration of a pool of different teaching methods (Brown and Atkins, 1988) to make use of 499 their advantages in order to improve the motivation of students and achieve a closer relationship with the professional requirements they will face in their professional future. The methods used were as follows: the theoretical content was taught in well-structured classes which seek to generate understanding and motivate students to participate in class, mainly with examples of real examples up to date. In practical classes, the teacher makes a brief reminder of the theoretical foundations to implement and oversee the development of the class. The practical classes have to main activities, both solved in groups: (1) the students have to solve, present and discuss in class small cases and exercises, previously assigned. (2) Students have conducted a real case study throughout the course. We consider case study the most suitable instrument for the stated aims. Case studies have been proposed by relevant accounting bodies (v.g. AAA, 1986; IFAC, 1996) and many authors (see table 1) as an adequate method for the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and skills development, as well as a way to increase perceived usefulness of the contents and motivational tool. Furthermore, as indicated by Marriott and Marriott (2003), case studies allow the student to better understand the accounting profession. Table 1. Advantages of case studies. Argyris (1980) Easton (1992) Libby (1991) Hear other points of view. Confronting differences. Make decisions. Be aware of the complexity of reality. Appreciate the lack of absolutely right or wrong answers. Improvement of learning content. Non technical skills Development: Analytical, decision making, communication, social, selfanalysis. Changing attitudes. Affective level Motivation Interest in the materials Development of trust Capacity building Written and oral communication Interaction Group Cognitive Level Development of problem-solving skills Ability to deal with ambiguity Understanding of reality Source: Hassall and others (1998) Specifically, empirically-based case studies have been used, in conjunction with lectures, with successful results in terms of content acquisition and skills development (Cullen and others, 2004). The monitored conduction of those cases also allow the use of an Action Learning approach (Revans, 1983; Pell, 2001; Godfrey, 2001; Hand, 2004), as the students work in small 500 groups to learn through analysis of business practice by studying real situations and at the same time, they also learn by sharing their thoughts and reflections on the cases (Pell, 2001). The empirically-based case study was structured as follows. The teacher asked students to form groups of three. Once the groups were formed, the teacher provided the students with a brief description of a particular firm that was assigned to a group to conduct the case study. No firm was assigned to more than one group, and firms in covering all tourism sectors were selected. This description included: - Data extracted from the financial statements of the firm - Economic sector in which the firm operates - Data to contact the firm A second step was to facilitate students a guide to gather further information about the firm and conduct the study. Following this guide, the students had to gather information about the firm the sector, competitors, etc. from different sources: public-domain information published by companies (brochures, financial statements, etc.), press news, Internet, etc. – They also have to collect internal information about the firm through interviews, questionnaires, etc. Once the information was collected, the group has to analyze it in order to prepare a preliminary report. The elaboration of this report was supervised in a series (2 per semester) of scheduled formal interviews by the teacher during the tutoring hours. In these interviews, the teacher assessed the evolution of the project, according to the guide, and also provided continuous counselling and assessment. When the group has redacted a final version of the report, they have to submit to the teacher, for consideration, a draft of the final report and an initial version of the presentation. The final report for each case study included description of the firm, including economic and financial data, the organization chart, identifying, in this chart, who is in charge of preparing and who is using financial and management information. An analysis of which management accounting tools were used in the firm have to be also included. Finally, the group should include 501 a critical opinion about the firm situation, the suitability of the management accounting tools and processes used, and recommendations for improvement. After all the final reports and presentations were collected, all of them were available, through the web page of the subject, for every student at the course. Also, the teacher made public the list of groups that were selected (randomly, but assuring that every sub sector of the industry were represented in a case) to present their work on a seminar, during the last two sessions of the course. In the seminar, only the selected groups have to present their results. But, all the students were encouraged to participate by discussing and comparing results and procedure with their own cases. The group presenting had the obligation to answer and clarify as many questions were presented. 3.- PURPOSE, INSTRUMENT AND SAMPLE This study determines the impact of the use of empirically-based case studies on the acquisition of knowledge, the development of non-technical skills and the motivation of the student. We have developed a longitudinal study from 2004-05 to 2007-08 academic courses. The instrument used for data collection was a self-assessment questionnaire developed under the supervision of the Institute of Education Sciences at the University of Seville after several years experience of educational innovations. The questionnaire was used to measure opinions of all students participating in the experience during the last seminar dedicated to the class discussion of the cases developed by the groups. This instrument has been used previously for the analysis of different experiences of educational innovation, among others, in Financial Accounting (Arquero and others. 2000 & 2004) and in Management Accounting subjects (Escobar and Lobo, 2007). 502 This questionnaire was designed to provide information on the students’ opinion about the impact of innovations on, learning content, development of non-technical skills and motivation. The structure of the instrument included three main parts: 1 .- Demographic Data: gender, age and work experience. 2 .- Opinions items. Represent the core of the questionnaire and consist of 27 questions to be answered in a 5 point Likert scale (1 strongly disagreement, 2 disagree, 3 neutral, 4 agree and 5 total agreement). This part was divided into five sections: 2.1. General assessment of the activity. 2.2. Motivation. 2.3. Skills development. 2.4. Content learning. 2.5. Characteristics of the activity. 3 .- Three open questions for students to highlight the best and the worst aspects of the innovation, as well as perceived ideas for further improvement. The sample was composed of all students who have participated in developing real case studies during the period of 2004 to 2008 in the subject of MATO for the Diploma in Tourism at the University of Seville. 4.- RESULTS The total number of questionnaires analyzed in this longitudinal study was 414 (from 2004-2005 to 2007-2008 academic courses). This represents the 24.6% of the total of students enrolled in the subject. The number of participants, by gender is: 329 women and 85 men (Table 2). To check is there are differences in participation by gender we performed a chi-square test comparing the distributions of participants and non-participants by gender. The results indicate that there were no significant differences in activity participation. 503 Table 2: Participation in Activity by Gender Males Females Total No parti cipant s N 276 993 1269 Percentage 21. 7% 78. 3% 100. 0% Participant s N 85 329 414 Percentage 20. 5% 79. 5% 100. 0% The overall assessment of the experience was good (Table 3), all the means are significantly higher than 3 (point of indifference to the scale used). The score given to question 7 is especially relevant: the students indicate that the participation of the groups in class made them more interesting. Table 3: General Assessment of the activity by year and gender Question Total 04-05 05-06 06-07 07-08 Male Female 5 I think that the time devoted to the activities has been worthwhile 3,62 3,74 3,62 3,46 3,73 3,81 3,57 6 I think the generalization of other subjects in the ECTS system would improve the quality of university teaching 3,73 3,91 3,66 3,63 3,79 3,96 3,68 7 The active participation of groups make classes more interesting 3,86 3,94 3,75 3,79 3,98 3,99 3,83 Total questions 11,24 11,59 11,03 10,97 11,50 11,75 11,12 Regarding the differences by gender, in general terms, male students give higher scores to questions of general assessment, although this difference was significant only on question 5, in which they believe that experience was worthwhile (t-test sig. <5%) and in the aggregate of all items (t-test p <5%). In the section devoted to motivation, the results are also quite encouraging (Table 4). All means are significantly higher than 3 and it is noteworthy that in three items the means are higher than 4. Thus, students highlighted that the activity motivated them to work harder (item 1), to become more involved in the subject (item 3) and changed their vision of the pupil as passive actor in the learning process (item 27). 504 Table 4: Motivation items by course and gender Question Total 04-05 05-06 06-07 07-08 Male Female 1 Activity motivated me to work harder in the subject 4,29 4,31 4,17 4,33 4,33 4,34 4,28 2 Activity improved my opinion on the content of the subject (practical vision) 3,98 3,94 3,91 4,05 4,00 4,05 3,97 3 I feel more involved in this subject than if the activity was more theoretical (usefulness vision). 4,26 4,31 4,10 4,28 4,36 4,31 4,25 4 Activities increased my interest in accounting 3,49 3,64 3,32 3,49 3,55 3,64 3,47 27 Activity changed my vision on the role of student as a passive receptor of information. 4,11 4,06 4,02 4,24 4,07 4,11 4,11 Total Questions 20,12 20,24 19,52 20,35 20,33 20,42 20,06 Again, in general terms, students perceive a greater impact in its motivation due to the activity. However, these differences are not statistically significant. The results are equally positive on the impact of activity on the development of non-technical skills (Table 5). In particular, students indicated that the activity helped them to develop analysis and critical skills of (item 14), to improve their ability to work in groups (item 16), to participation in classes (item 26) and especially, their oral presentation skills (question 17), one of the most important skills, according to published literature (Arquero and others, 2000, Hassall and others, 2005), which reached 4.11. Table 5: Development of non technical skills items by course and gender Question Total 04-05 05-06 06-07 07-08 Male Female 14 Activity helped me to develop analysis, synthesis and critical skills. 4,01 4,11 3,88 3,97 4,10 4,04 4,00 15 Activity helped me to develop information search, library resources and IT skills. 3,80 3,89 3,69 3,75 3,90 3,69 3,83 16 Activity improved my skills to work in teams. 4,00 4,04 3,74 4,09 4,09 3,95 4,01 17 I I have improved my abilities to present, defend and debate opinions in public. 4,10 4,29 3,83 4,07 4,23 4,11 4,11 18 I have improved my abilities to write a report through this activity. 3,73 3,89 3,66 3,71 3,72 3,65 3,78 26 Presentations make the participation in debates easier. 3,95 3,94 3,72 4,01 4,09 3,81 4,00 Total questions 23,58 24,15 22,52 23,61 24,13 23,25 23,73 505 Evans, C. (2008): “Developing Career Management Skills within the HE Curriculum: a Review and Evaluation of Different Approaches”. 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