Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Teaching and Learning Center

Abstract

Providing a learning environment that is relevant to the varied learningstyles of accounting students and enables them to master the foundationsof accounting practice from identifying transactions through toproducing and interpreting financial statements is one of thefundamental problems facing accounting education. `AccountingLab' is acomputer-based visual learning tool that has been developed to addressthis need. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the reactions ofaccounting students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels to thestyle of learning embodied in `AccountingLab'. Students at thefoundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels of accounting studywere asked to evaluate the usefulness of `Accounting Lab' to theirspecific learning needs through survey, ad hoc discussions and developerobservation. `AccountingLab' has been found to increase learnerengagement, demystify the principles of accounting and to encourageexperimentation. Student responses are largely stated rather thanrevealed through multiple interrelated research methods. `AccountingLab'provides a practical solution to the down-side of computerisation, whichon the one hand has made vast amounts of specific information availablewith a few keystrokes, while on the other hand can reduce understandingthrough embedding accounting rules and principles in computerapplications.