Description
The purpose of this paper is to explore accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies in Malaysia, which has a more passive learning environment, and if gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies influenced students’ perceptions.
Accounting Research Journal
Case studies in a passive learning environment: some Malaysian evidence
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad Maliah Sulaiman
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To cite this document:
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad Maliah Sulaiman , (2013),"Case studies in a passive learning environment: some
Malaysian evidence", Accounting Research J ournal, Vol. 26 Iss 3 pp. 173 - 196
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Case studies in a passive learning
environment: some Malaysian
evidence
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad and Maliah Sulaiman
Department of Accounting, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies in Malaysia, which has a more passive learning environment, and if gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies in?uenced students’ perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey on students’ perceived usefulness of
case studies based on Weil et al. was used with ?nal-year students enrolled in an advanced
management accounting course. The data were gathered over two semesters in 2006/2007.
Findings – Findings reveal that generally students felt that the case method was very useful and
gave them numerous bene?ts. However, there were no signi?cant differences in the perceived
usefulness of case studies across gender and prior academic performance. Some differences were
observed between students with prior exposure to case studies and students without such exposure, in
that students without prior exposure perceived higher bene?ts of case studies.
Research limitations/implications – The study showed that students in a passive learning
environment generally ?nd case studies to be very bene?cial.
Practical implications – The case approach should be used more extensively and introduced
earlier in accounting undergraduate programmes.
Originality/value – This study is one of very few studies which have investigated
students’ perceived usefulness of case studies, in a developing country, Malaysia, where a more
passive learning environment exists – addressing an important gap in the accounting education
literature.
Keywords Case studies, Malaysia, Accounting education, Affective bene?ts, Cognitive bene?ts,
Passive learning environment
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The past two decades have witnessed widespread debate and concern as to whether
accounting education has adequately prepared accounting graduates for professional
work. This concern started in the USA, with the publication of the Bedford report
(American Accounting Association (AAA) Committee on the Future Structure, Content
and Scope of Accounting Education (The Bedford Committee), 1986), and has, spread to
other parts of the world. Lovell (1992) claimed that the educational system of UK
accountants is in a crisis. In Australia, the Mathews Report Mathews et al., (1990) echoed
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
JEL classi?cation – M40, M49
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge assistance received from Dr Zamzulaila Zakaria
from the International Islamic University Malaysia during the initial phase of the study. The
authors are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers and the Journal Editor for the insightful
comments which helped to strengthen the paper.
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 26 No. 3, 2013
pp. 173-196
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/ARJ-10-2012-0082
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similar views and called for a major revamp of accounting education. The report
advocated the use of innovative pedagogy in the teaching of accounting.
Meanwhile, similar calls for accounting education reform to better prepare
graduates for today’s challenging business environment have also been made in
Malaysia. Employers in Malaysia are demanding that graduates need to possess
strong communication, organizational, analytical, research, problem-solving and
technological skills (Accountants’ Today, 2008, pp. 12-14). Technical skills alone, is not
suf?cient.
In response to these calls for reformin accounting education, the Malaysian Ministry
of Higher Education (MOHE) (2007) produced a blueprint, Halatuju 2: Reassessment
Report on Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia 2006. The major
objective is to produce accounting graduates capable of integrating and applying
multi-disciplinary knowledge to solve business problems. Consequently, Halatuju 2
advocates a student-centred learning approach which emphasises “independent
learning, active learning processes, analytical thinking, effective writing ability and
effective oral communication” (MOHE, 2007, p. xvii)[1]. Student-centred learning
approaches comprise various pedagogical techniques which hold the student
responsible for their own learning (Collins and O’Brien, 2003). Examples include the
use of case studies, group work, ?eld work, oral presentations and role plays. The
present study focuses on the usefulness of the case study approach as the method has
been widely acclaimed for its ability to promote deeper learning and the development of
important soft skills (Healy and McCutcheon, 2010).
Prior studies have largely examined the use and bene?ts of the case study approach
in active learning environments[2]. Very limited work has been undertaken on case
study learning in a passive learning environment[3]. We posit that students in a
passive learning environment may ?nd the case study approach to be more dif?cult
and challenging. Consequently, the case study approach, when used in a passive
learning environment, may not yield the same bene?ts as when used in a more
active learning environment, where students assume more responsibility for their own
learning. This is what the present paper attempts to examine.
Speci?cally, the paper has two major objectives. The ?rst is to investigate
accounting students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies and second is to
examine whether gender, prior academic performance and prior exposure to case
studies in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of case studies.
The present study makes a signi?cant contribution in several ways. First, we
examine accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case studies in a context, which
has largely remained unexplored, that of a passive learning environment. Most prior
work has focused on more active learning environments such as the USA and the UK.
O’Sullivan (2004, p. 33) suggested that student-centred learning is a Western learning
approach and “[. . .] may not necessarily transfer to the developing countries, such
as Namibia, where there are limited resources and different learning cultures”. The
widely-held assumption that the case study approach will foster and enhance learning of
all students, including those in a more passive learning environment (as is dominant in
most developing countries, including Malaysia), is not necessarily valid. Consequently,
we argue that it would be critical to demonstrate that the use of the case study approach
will produce the same bene?ts in terms of the development of cognitive, affective and
developmental skills in students in a passive learning environment. The major aim of
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this paper is to contribute to the literature by determining if the bene?ts of case study
learning extend across learning environments.
Second, our work extends the extant literature on accounting students’ perceived
usefulness of case studies. Weil et al. (1999, 2001) investigated the effects of gender and
prior academic performance on students’ perceptions on the use of case studies but the
results in the two studies were different. Meanwhile, Ballantine and McCourt Larres
(2004) suggested that further work in this area should look into factors other than
relevant work experience, which may in?uence students’ perceptions of the usefulness
of case studies. We examine three factors; gender, prior academic performance and prior
exposure to the case method. Finally, the present study responds to the pleas made by
Wilkerson Jr (2010) who stated “we as accounting educators should redouble our efforts
to assure that we are educating our students for practice and that our accounting
curricula are broadly formative”. He goes on to argue “[. . .] our curricula should go well
beyond the acquisition of technical accounting knowledge [. . .]” (p. 11). Hence,
investigating students’ perceived usefulness of the case method in a passive learning
environment and examining whether demographic variables in?uence students’
perceptions will be useful in assisting accounting educators both in the developing
countries (where a more passive learning environment prevails) as well as in the
developed countries, as international student enrollment in their accounting
programmes continue to increase exponentially[4].
2. Literature review
Weil et al. (2004) argued that most of the case study literature in accounting education has
been con?ned to descriptive and/or prescriptive work that discusses the nature of case
studies, their form, level of detail and how to use cases in accounting education. Very
limited work has been done to investigate the usefulness of the case study approach,
despite widespread calls worldwide for the use of cases in accounting education.
A pioneering work on the bene?ts of case studies is that of Libby (1991). Libby
surveyed faculty members at US colleges and universities to identify the bene?ts and
barriers to using the case method and to examine the level and manner of case usage.
Libby categorised case study bene?ts into three broad areas:
.
Affective (student motivation, interest in material, development of con?dence).
.
Skill development (oral communication, written communication and group
interaction skills).
.
Cognitive (problem-solving skills, judgment skills, ability to solve problems
addressing multiple issues, ability to deal with ambiguity, understanding of the
real world, comprehension of material).
The present study uses the same three categories of bene?ts. Other prominent work on
the advantages of the case method include those by Barnes et al. (1994),
Mauffette-Leenders et al. (1999), Golich et al. (2000), Erskine et al. (2003) and Foran
(2001). These authors hail the case method as a very powerful approach that will help
students develop numerous soft skills necessary in today’s working environment.
Unfortunately, these writings have been the experiences of professors in the developed
countries where students are accustomed to a more active learning approach. The
literature is silent on whether such bene?ts extend across more passive learning
environments.
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Weil et al. (2001) used a questionnaire survey to investigate South African students’
perceptions of the use of case studies andwhether gender andprior academic performance
in?uencedsuchperceptions. Theyfoundthat the students perceivedcases to be bene?cial.
The main bene?t was exposure to the real-world context – especially in relation to
decision-making and the next bene?t of case studies was perceived to be that of exposing
students to multiple solutions. Findings also revealed some gender and prior academic
performance differences. Inparticular, belowaverage students perceived that theybene?t
more on three skills; “applying theory to the real world”, “applying knowledge in general”
and “summarising information”. Female students had less favourable perceptions of the
usefulness of case studies. Our present study re-visits gender and prior academic
performance in?uences, albeit in a passive learning environment.
Weil et al. (2004) investigated the perceived usefulness of case studies among
students in the Institute of Chartered Accountants in New Zealand programme, on the
development of various competencies. The authors found that the main perceived
bene?ts were the ability to evaluate situations from more than one perspective and the
ability to consider alternative solutions. The authors also found signi?cant differences
in the perceived usefulness across gender and ?rst language.
Our literature review revealed very limited work on passive learning environments.
The two most recent studies done withaccounting students who were more accustomedto
a passive learning environment are those by Hwang et al. (2005, 2008). Both studies
examined universitystudents inHongKongto investigate whether a cooperative learning
approach can improve students’ ability to apply knowledge learned in class. Results
suggest that students achieve better learning outcomes through cooperative learning
compared to the traditional lecture method. The present study extends this work by
examining the perceived usefulness of case studies in a passive learning environment.
To summarise, the literature review has highlighted many favourable aspects of the
use of case studies in accounting education, and has emphasised how case studies may
be used as a valuable pedagogic tool in accounting education. However, much of the
prior work was limited to conceptual, rather than empirical studies and the few studies
that investigated accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case studies have
focused on students in more active learning environments. Very little is known about
the bene?ts of the case study approach to students more accustomed to the traditional
lecture approach. This is the contribution of the present study. Additionally, studies
that examine whether students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies are
in?uenced by demographic variables, have mixed and inconclusive ?ndings. Also,
only gender and prior academic performance have been commonly studied. The
present study introduces an additional variable – prior exposure to case studies.
3. Hypotheses development
There are two main objectives of the present study. The ?rst objective is to examine
accounting students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies, using Libby’s (1991)
bene?t categories of affective, cognitive and skills development bene?ts. The second
objective of the study is to investigate if three demographic variables; gender, prior
academic performance and prior exposure to the case method in?uences accounting
students’ perceived usefulness of the case method. Based on the review of literature,
and following Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004), we develop three hypotheses for
the study.
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Gender
Brazelton (1998) reports that male students are inclined to participate more actively in
class discussions and interrupt more often compared to their female peers. Since male
and female students have different class participation behaviour, we concur with
Weil et al. (2001) that this difference may in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of
case studies as case studies require more active participation. Weil et al. (1999, 2001)
found that students’ perceived usefulness of the case approach is dependent upon their
gender. Weil et al. (2004) found that while the rankings of the bene?ts of case studies
are similar across male and female students, some signi?cant differences were found
for different skills gained from case studies. However, more recent studies ?nd no
association between gender and students’ approaches to learning over time
(Ballantine et al., 2008), student achievement (Fogarty and Goldwater, 2010) and
academic performance (Byrne and Flood, 2008). In light of these inconclusive results,
we investigate whether gender in?uences students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies.
In Malaysia, there is documented evidence of a gender imbalance in private higher
institutions (Tham, 2011). One may assume therefore that this imbalance also extends
to the public higher institutions. Thus, if gender has an in?uence on students’
perceived usefulness of case studies, it is important for accounting educators to
identify this. Thus, we develop the following null hypothesis:
H0a. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between male and female students.
Prior academic performance
The in?uence of prior academic performance on students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies has been investigated by Weil et al. (1999, 2001). However, the studies found
con?icting results. Weil et al. (1999) found no association between prior academic
performance and students’ perceptions on the use of case studies. Meanwhile, Weil et al.
(2004) report that below-average students ?nd case studies more useful in developing a
number of skills. Based on the above, we develop the following null hypothesis:
H0b. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between students of different levels
of prior academic performance.
Prior exposure to case studies
Extant literature often espouses many bene?ts of case studies ranging from
development of skills (oral and written communication, listening, questioning, time
management, argumentative skills) to compelling students to assume responsibility for
their learning, appreciate multiple viewpoints and promote realism
(Mauffette-Leenders et al., 1999; Golich et al., 2000; Weil et al., 2001; Rippin et al.,
2002; Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004; Cullen et al., 2004; Wynn-Williams et al.,
2008; Doran et al., 2011). Thus, it is reasonable to expect that prior exposure to case
studies will not in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of the case approach since all
students will ?nd the case approach useful[5]. Speci?cally, we hypothesise that:
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H0c. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between students who have some
prior exposure to case studies and students who have none.
4. Research methodology
Background to the study – Seminar in Cost and Management Accounting
Seminar in Cost and Management Accounting (SCMA) was a ?nal year compulsory core
course in the four-year Bachelor of Accounting (Honours) programme at the
International Islamic University Malaysia. The medium of instruction at this
university is English. This is the last of a series of four cost and management
accounting courses that need to be taken byall accountingstudents. This is a three credit
hour course, taught twice a week, in sessions of 1 h 20 min each, over a 14-week semester.
The SCMA course comprises only four lectures. The other sessions are used for
discussion of problems or group case analysis and case critique presentations by
students. The course uses the text “Advanced Management Accounting” by Kaplan and
Atkinson (1998) as well as some other cases compiled from various sources. The course
required substantial independent work by the students, to analyse and critique cases
through group presentations, as well as a group project requiring ?eld interviews with
management accountants/?nancial controllers of various organisations. The course
assessment is 5 per cent class participation, 5 per cent group case analysis presentation,
5 per cent group case analysis report, 10 per cent group case critique presentation,
15 per cent written groupproject report, 5 per cent groupproject presentation, 10 per cent
in-class group case analysis assignment and 50 per cent ?nal examination[6].
The four lectures are on Evolution of Management Accounting, Environmental
Management Accounting, Balanced Scorecard and Incentive Compensation.
In addition, there are ten case analysis and critique presentations. There is one open
book, group-based “two-hour mid-term” exam, which is based on a pre-seen case study.
The ?nal closed-book examination is a 3 h comprehensive exam, based on a pre-seen
case and two problem questions.
Participants
Participants inthe study were 231 students enrolled inthe SCMAcourse (ACC4610) at the
International Islamic University, Malaysia. The subjects were drawn from two groups of
students, enrolled in the course in two consecutive semesters. A Mann-Whitney U-test
suggests no signi?cant differences across students in the two semesters.
The lecturers teaching the courses for the two semesters were the same, so were the
course outlines, course content, assessment, text book and all aspects of administering
the survey questionnaire.
Questionnaire survey and procedure
A questionnaire survey on the usefulness of case studies was distributed to all students
in the SCMAcourse in two consecutive semesters, with the total number of respondents
being 231 students. The questionnaire instrument was based on prior work on the case
study approach in accounting education (Libby, 1991; Kimmel, 1995; Weil et al., 2001).
The questionnaire comprises two parts. Part one comprises demographic questions.
The second part contains 36 questions. The ?rst 31 items required students to rate,
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on a Likert scale (ranging from1 – “not at all” to 7 – “extensively” with 4 – “moderate”),
to what extent, they felt that the use of case studies have helped to develop certain skills
(Please refer to the Appendix for the questionnaire instrument). These items are based
on Weil et al.’s (2001) work. Question 32 requires the students to rank the three most
valuable bene?ts of the case study approach. The next question required students to
describe any other learning bene?ts that case studies may have. The remaining three
questions in the instrument will not be used in this paper.
The questionnaire was distributed by the lecturers in class, in week 12 of the
14-week semester, to allow students to have gained suf?cient exposure from the case
study method. Students were allowed to return the questionnaires in the next class
period. While participation in the survey was not compulsory, we emphasised the
importance of this research and encouraged students to respond.
5. Results and discussion
Pro?le of respondents
Table I presents the respondents’ pro?le. Panel A provides the number and percentage
of the respondents, by gender. A signi?cant majority of the respondents were females
(83.1 per cent) compared to only 16.9 per cent males. Panel B displays the distribution
of students across prior academic performance. There were 106 students with a
cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 3.0 and above (51.2 per cent), 58 students
with CGPA between 2.5 and 2.99 (28 per cent), while 43 (20.8 per cent) students had
CGPA of lower than 2.5. Panel C reveals that 193 (84.3 per cent) students had prior
exposure to case studies, while 36 students (15.7 per cent) did not.
Descriptive statistics
As mentioned earlier, we used Libby’s (1991) three categories of bene?ts of case studies;
identifying each of the 31 items in our questionnaire as a cognitive bene?t, affective
bene?t or skills development bene?t. For “skills development”, Libby (1991) de?ned it as
oral communication skills, written communication skills and group interaction skills.
No. %
Panel A
Gender
Male 39 16.9
Female 192 83.1
Total 231 100
Panel B
Prior academic performance
Above average (3.0 or higher) 106 51.2
Average (2.5-2.99) 58 28.0
Below average (below 2.5) 43 20.8
Total 207 100
Panel C
Prior exposure to case studies
Yes 193 84.3
No 36 15.7
Total 229 100
Table I.
Demographic pro?le
of respondents
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We, however, considered a broader set of skills as falling into this category yielding a
total of seven items categorised as “skills development bene?ts”; interpreting, listening,
asking pertinent questions, written communication, ability to organise data, persuasion
skills and ability to summarise information. Listening and asking questions relate
directly to oral communication while the ability to interpret, organise and summarise
data and information are pre-requisites of good written communication skills.
The Webster’s online dictionary de?nes “affective” as “characterised by emotion”
and Libby (1991) included three bene?ts in this category; student motivation, student
interest in materials and development of con?dence. Based on the above, we identi?ed
three items as “affective” bene?ts; “increase motivation to study the course”,
“encourage student to be an active participant” and “encourage students to take
responsibility for their own learning” as these three attributes re?ect a particular state
of emotion (Webster’s Online Dictionary, 2013).
Finally, the remaining 21 items were all classi?ed as “cognitive” bene?ts as these
align with the de?nition in the Webster dictionary that is “knowing or apprehending
by understanding”. Libby (1991, p. 195) listed a total of six bene?ts comprising
problem solving skills, judgement skills, ability to solve problems addressing multiple
issues, development of an understanding of the real world and comprehension of
material. The 21 remaining items on the questionnaire instrument all related to such
aspects of knowledge and thus were classi?ed as cognitive bene?ts.
We rank the bene?ts by their perceived usefulness. Table II displays the descriptive
statistics for the ?ve highest and ?ve lowest ranked cognitive bene?ts. It also shows
the percentage of students rating the particular item as very useful (ratings of 5-7),
moderate (rating of 4) and less useful (ratings of 1-3).
The highest ranked cognitive bene?t pertains to encouragement of adopting a
broader-based perspective by considering the multiple constituents of the case, i.e. the
accountant, the manager, the CEO. The other top-ranked cognitive bene?ts are
development of critical-thinking ability, application of knowledge to new situations,
ability to consolidate prior knowledge on cost and management accounting and
integration of technical knowledge. This is largely consistent with the prior literature
which espouses the development of critical thinking skills as a major bene?t of the case
study approach (Campbell and Lewis, 1991; Kimmel, 1995; Wines et al., 1994).
Table II also reveals that students are of the opinion that the case study approach does
not help themto think conceptually, to develop their problemsolving skills, teach themto
distinguishfacts fromopinions, developtheir skills inevaluatingideals, or to developtheir
ability to synthesise the essential elements in a given situation. One of these items,
“distinguish between facts and opinions”, was also one of the ?ve lowest ranked cognitive
bene?ts of case studies inthe Ballantine and McCourt Larres’ (2004) work. We concur with
the authors that this may be partlyattributedto the limited exposure that students have to
the case approach; consequently, they may not have fully appreciated the bene?ts.
We also agree that another plausible reason could be that the types of cases used
may not have been very suitable for students with little prior exposure to case studies
(cases may be too lengthy or cases may be from a different and unfamiliar context, for
example the use of American cases in Malaysia). Finally, another possible factor may
have been the fact that the students have largely been exposed to a more passive
learning environment and therefore needed time to adjust to, and bene?t from, the
more active learning that is required of the case approach. This is consistent with
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Kember (2000, p. 8) who argued that students who have studied in a passive learning
environment, “[. . .] may not be familiar with such forms of learning [learning methods
which require active participation of students] so will need help and time for
adaptation”.
On the affective bene?ts (Panel B), one interesting ?nding is that the general
ranking of the perceived affective bene?ts are similar with those reported by Ballantine
and McCourt Larres (2004). Although the authors had six items categorised as
“affective” bene?ts, while we only had three, the order of the ranking is the same.
Students generally feel that the most important affective bene?t is that the case study
approach encourages them to assume more responsibility for their own learning. This
is consistent with Adler and Milne (1995). Students are also of the opinion that the case
approach enhances their motivation to study. This ?nding supports the contentions
made by Golich et al. (2000) who argue that the case method forces students to assume
responsibility for their own learning.
Bene?t Mean
a
7/6/5
b
(%)
4
c
(%)
3/2/1
d
(%)
Panel A: cognitive bene?ts
Five highest ranked
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the different parties
(for example, managers, shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved
in the case? 5.62 78.6 15.3 6.1
Help you to develop your ability to think critically about issues? 5.58 83.5 12.6 3.9
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new situations? 5.47 77.8 16.1 6.1
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the discipline? 5.46 75.4 20.6 3.9
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of the discipline? 5.42 74.0 19.9 6.1
Five lowest ranked
Encourage you to think conceptually? 5.18 77.1 18.6 4.3
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 5.08 83.9 11.6 4.5
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 4.96 67.5 23.7 8.8
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 4.92 77.0 18.3 4.8
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the essential elements
of a given situation? 4.77 70.7 21.8 7.4
Panel B: “affective” bene?ts
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 5.42 82.7 13.9 3.5
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning process? 5.07 58.9 29.0 12.1
Increase your motivation to study the course 4.77 57.1 22.9 19.9
Panel C: skills development
Help you to develop skills in interpreting ? 5.51 79.9 14.0 6.1
Develop your written communication skills? 5.45 73.5 20.0 6.5
Develop your ability to summarize the available information? 5.36 76.6 17.7 5.6
Develop your ability to organize data? 5.27 73.2 18.6 8.2
Develop your listening skills? 5.09 50.2 28.4 21.4
Develop your persuasive skills? 4.96 60.4 30.0 9.7
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 4.84 58.9 29.0 12.1
Notes:
a
The mean ?gure here represents the mean for the entire sample of 231 respondents on each
item in the questionnaire;
b
?gures in this column denote the percentage of respondents rating each
item as 5, 6 or 7;
c
this denotes the percentage of respondents who rated 4 for each item;
d
this denotes
the percentage of respondents who rated the items 1, 2 or 3
Table II.
Ranking of students’
perception of the bene?ts
from using case studies
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On the skills development bene?ts, one major difference from the results of
Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004) and Weil et al. (2001), lies in the ranking of the
written communication skills. The students in our study attached more importance to
the impact of cases on the development of their written communication skills. This
may well be due to the fact that our students are non-native speakers of English and
yet the medium of instruction at the sample university is English. Thus, they may be
more inclined to notice an improvement in their written communication skills
compared to students in other countries where many students are native speakers of
English. Among the skills bene?t, written communication skills was ranked second
while the most important skill bene?t is skills in interpreting and the lowest ranked
skill bene?t is asking pertinent questions. This may also suggest that students who are
more accustomed to a passive learning environment will need time to acquire the
ability to ask questions in class, thus perceiving that they have bene?ted least on
this skill.
Hypotheses testing
As in Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004) we performed a Mann-Whitney U and the
Kruskal-Wallis test of signi?cant differences to ascertain if differences exist in
students’ perceptions of the bene?ts of the case approach, by gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies.
Table III presents the Mann-Whitney U-test results for cognitive bene?ts. There is
no signi?cant difference between male and female students, thus we fail to reject H0a.
This suggests that gender does not have a signi?cant impact on students’ perceptions
of the cognitive bene?ts. The data reported in Tables IV and V suggest a similar
situation, but for affective bene?ts and skills development bene?ts, respectively. This
is contrary to some earlier studies. Weil et al. (2001) found that there were some
statistically signi?cant differences between male and female students’ perceptions for
some bene?ts of the case study approach. This ?nding is also surprising in light of
Brazelton’s (1998) work, which found that male students are involved more often and
interrupt more often. Based on this, one would then expect signi?cant differences
between males and females on the perceived bene?ts of case studies. One possible
explanation for this is that the students in the present study have been more
accustomed to a passive learning environment where the dominant teaching approach
has been the traditional lecture. Thus, both male and female students ?nd the case
approach very useful and consequently, there are no signi?cant differences across
gender. These ?ndings are however similar to some more recent studies investigating
the effects of gender differences in accounting education in general (Ballantine et al.,
2008; Byrne and Flood, 2008; Fogarty and Goldwater, 2010).
Meanwhile Tables VI-VIII report the results of the Kruskal-Wallis test for prior
academic performance. Again, the results showed no signi?cant differences across the
three groups of students. We fail to reject H0b. This suggests that regardless of
academic performance, students generally found the case method to be useful. Again
this supports the theoretical literature on the many advantages attributed to the case
approach. Mauffette-Leenders et al. (1999, pp. 5-6) suggested that there exists a whole
inventory of skills developed by the case method; analytical, decision-making,
application, oral communication, time management interpersonal, creative and written
communication skills.
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Finally, Tables IX-XI report the results of the Mann-Whitney U-test for prior case
exposure. Interestingly, this is the part where there are many signi?cant differences. On
cognitive bene?ts, there are signi?cant differences in the students’ perceived usefulness
on ?ve items – the ability to integrate understanding of the different components of the
courses, critical thinking ability, the ability to make decisions with incomplete
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
a
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as identifying
and choosing between available alternatives)? 109.08 117.41 20.735 0.462
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 113.86 115.23 20.121 0.904
Help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues? 117.58 115.68 20.168 0.867
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)? 107.75 117.03 20.812 0.417
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 97.14 118.67 21.893 0.058
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline? 118.30 111.92 20.573 0.567
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 107.93 115.77 20.683 0.495
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 115.90 115.42 20.042 0.966
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 110.74 117.07 20.551 0.582
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the
different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the case? 112.49 116.12 20.322 0.748
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties of
decision-making in business? 105.13 117.62 21.101 0.271
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 104.42 118.35 21.227 0.220
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 108.31 116.97 20.767 0.443
Give you insight into practical business operations? 107.09 117.16 20.885 0.376
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data in a
case? 120.26 115.14 20.452 0.651
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 119.6 115.25 20.393 0.694
Encourage you to think conceptually? 109.32 116.13 20.599 0.549
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 106.45 115.52 20.803 0.422
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 117.40 115.72 20.149 0.882
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 102.08 118.83 21.474 0.141
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of
the discipline? 108.01 117.62 20.853 0.393
Notes:
a
The Mann-Whitney U-test is corrected for ties; this means that in the event of tied values, they
are each assigned the average of the ranks had no ties occurred; for example the data set {100, 96, 57,
100, 82, 100} has values of 100 tied for the fourth, ?fth and sixth places, respectively; since the mean of
4, 5 and 6 is 5, the ranks assigned to the raw data values above would be as follows {5, 3, 1, 5, 2, 5}
Table III.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between male and
female students
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information, the ability to distinguish facts from opinions and the ability to deal with
ambiguous situations. On affective bene?ts, there is one signi?cant difference for
encouraging active participation in the learning process. Finally, on skills development,
students with no prior case exposure found that the perceived usefulness of case studies
in ?ve different areas to be signi?cantly higher than the perceived usefulness among
students with prior case exposure. Speci?cally, students who have not beentaught using
case studies prior to the SCMA class, perceived higher bene?ts of the case method in
developing questioning skills, listening skills, written communication skills, the ability
to organise data and persuasion skills. Thus, H0c was rejected, suggesting that there is
a signi?cant difference in the perceived usefulness of case studies between students
with no prior exposure to case studies and those with some prior exposure.
6. Conclusions, limitations and future research
The present study contributes valuable insights into accounting students’ perceptions
of the usefulness of the case approach. Though this issue has been investigated
previously, most prior work has been done in developed countries where active
learning is predominant (Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004; Weil et al., 2001, 2004).
The major contribution of the present study lies in its context, Malaysia, where like
most developing countries, students are more passive learners. As such, in responding
to calls for accounting education reform, accounting educators in developing countries
need to understand whether the case approach will yield the many bene?ts often
attributed to it, when students have been more accustomed to passive, rather than
active learning.
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Help you to develop skills in interpreting (de?ned as the ability
to understand and decipher data)? 103.66 117.84 21.244 0.214
Develop your listening skills? 110.42 115.32 20.430 0.667
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 125.12 114.15 20.964 0.335
Develop your written communication skills? 113.37 115.32 20.173 0.863
Develop your ability to organize data? 118.96 115.40 20.316 0.752
Develop your persuasive skills? 117.82 113.21 20.412 0.680
Develop your ability to summarize the available information? 106.26 117.98 21.029 0.304
Table V.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
male and female students
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Increase your motivation to study the course 113.79 116.45 20.232 0.816
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning
process? 131.86 112.26 21.711 0.087
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 71.14 59.23 21.360 0.174
Table IV.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between male and
female students
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Our results suggest that students do perceive the case approach as generating many
bene?ts including improving their critical-thinking and written communication skills.
There is no signi?cant difference across gender and prior academic performance.
Differences were found only between students with and without prior exposure to case
studies.
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above
average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below
average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as
identifying and choosing between available
alternatives)? 107.04 97.02 105.92 1.188 0.552
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 107.01 93.71 108.15 2.350 0.309
Help you to develop your ability to think
critically about issues? 105.75 107.14 95.45 1.219 0.544
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the
ability to think in a logical and enquiring
manner)? 107.04 92.16 110.15 3.205 0.201
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 101.16 97.04 115.41 2.686 0.261
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of
the discipline? 101.99 97.01 103.94 0.430 0.807
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 106.36 98.25 98.62 0.989 0.610
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 106.84 98.48 102.10 0.822 0.663
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 103.95 97.66 112.66 1.620 0.445
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of
the different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the
case? 106.89 95.64 105.81 1.522 0.467
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties
of decision-making in business? 101.23 103.05 109.69 0.659 0.719
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 106.17 100.48 103.41 0.365 0.833
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 102.15 101.02 110.14 0.740 0.691
Give you insight into practical business
operations? 103.84 98.63 109.12 0.828 0.661
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data
in a case? 105.15 106.78 97.42 0.735 0.693
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 107.96 104.05 94.16 1.768 0.413
Encourage you to think conceptually? 103.43 100.64 105.08 0.160 0.923
Encourage you to distinguish facts from
opinions? 103.54 102.07 100.58 0.086 0.958
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 103.96 107.66 99.16 0.539 0.764
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 107.42 96.70 105.99 1.446 0.485
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge
of the discipline? 108.45 96.70 102.88 1.589 0.452
Table VI.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between average,
above average and below
average students
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Our results have major implications. First, accounting students do perceive case
studies as being bene?cial for them even though these students have been largely
exposed to a passive learning environment. This suggests that case studies are a useful
pedagogy that bene?ts students from various learning backgrounds and thus, should
be used more extensively to produce graduates who are able to think critically, and
possess good communication skills. The second implication is the case study pedagogy
is applicable to accounting students irrespective of differences in gender, prior
academic performance, and prior exposure to case studies. The case study method thus
should be used in more courses in the undergraduate accounting programme so that
students are exposed to this method early in their degree programme. Besides, the
positive ?ndings of the usefulness of case studies provide strong support for a
capstone course that uses case studies as the major pedagogy to ensure that students
are able to apply their knowledge of the various sub-disciplines of accounting and
allied areas such as auditing, tax, ?nancial and managerial accounting, marketing,
human resource management, strategic management and ethics, in attempting to solve
real-world problems. Such a course would certainly help ful?ll the accounting
educators’ responsibility to prepare accounting students for a professional career
(Wilkerson Jr, 2010). These results lend support for the Integrated Case Study course
introduced as a policy recommendation of Halatuju 2: Reassessment Report on
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Increase your motivation to study the
course
102.01 100.05 114.22 1.704 0.427
Encourage you to be an active
participant in the learning process?
100.30 108.80 104.37 0.815 0.665
Encourage you to take responsibility
for your own learning?
57.70 64.02 55.85 1.067 0.587
Table VII.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between average,
above average and below
average students
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above
average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below
average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Help you to develop skills in interpreting
(de?ned as the ability to understand and
decipher data)? 104.44 104.85 101.76 0.084 0.959
Develop your listening skills? 97.92 106.04 108.87 1.411 0.494
Develop your skills in asking pertinent
questions? 104.03 104.47 103.30 0.010 0.995
Develop your written communication skills? 99.63 109.70 107.08 1.300 0.522
Develop your ability to organize data? 106.81 103.41 97.86 0.746 0.689
Develop your persuasive skills? 99.28 106.03 103.18 0.545 0.761
Develop your ability to summarize the
available information? 109.18 88.53 112.09 5.796 0.055
Table VIII.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
average, above average
and below average
students
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Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as identifying
and choosing between available alternatives)? 112.94 126.06 21.130 0.258
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 109.74 137.39 22.371 0.018
* *
Help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues? 111.30 134.86 22.038 0.042
* *
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)? 113.00 122.49 20.817 0.414
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 113.71 115.51 20.154 0.877
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline? 109.82 124.12 21.237 0.216
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 113.67 112.56 20.096 0.924
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 109.32 142.14 22.838 0.005
*
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 113.59 122.56 20.762 0.446
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the
different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the case? 111.41 130.96 21.691 0.091
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties of
decision-making in business? 112.82 123.46 20.915 0.360
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 113.45 123.33 20.850 0.396
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 112.48 125.61 21.122 0.262
Give you insight into practical business operations? 113.40 120.35 20.602 0.547
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data in a
case? 112.89 126.31 21.155 0.248
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 111.86 131.83 21.725 0.085
Encourage you to think conceptually? 112.42 122.69 20.880 0.379
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 109.00 134.01 22.185 0.029
* *
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 110.11 141.22 22.689 0.007
*
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 112.80 126.78 21.199 0.230
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of
the discipline? 113.22 124.56 20.983 0.326
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table IX.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between students
with prior case study
exposure and students
with no prior case study
exposure
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Increase your motivation to study the course 112.68 127.46 21.262 0.207
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning process? 108.47 147.76 23.344 0.001
*
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 60.24 65.08 20.565 0.572
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table X.
X Mann-Whitney U-test
of differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between students
with prior case study
exposure and students
with no prior case study
exposure
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Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia 2006 (MOHE, 2007). The
course comprises solely of case studies. Thus, accounting educators and policy-makers
in both developed and developing countries should be re-assured that the case study
method is useful and relevant across learning environments, gender, different levels of
academic performance and irrespective of whether students have prior exposure to the
method.
The present study, however, is subject to several limitations. First, the survey
was conducted in a single university for a single advanced accounting course. Thus, it
is desirable that future research utilise a larger sample of accounting students in
various courses and in different universities. However, the use of a single institution
does provide “the advantage of a constant institutional context” (Healy and
McCutcheon, 2010, p. 565). The second limitation relates to the uneven distribution of
the sample respondents, in particular, the high number of female students in the
sample compared to male students (192 females and 39 males). This may have some
impact on the results of the statistical tests and is therefore a limitation of the study.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to avoid this as this was the gender distribution of
the students enrolled in the course at the time of the study. This gender imbalance,
however is true of the Bachelor of Accounting programme at the sample university at
that time. A third limitation is that the present study only examined three demographic
variables. Future studies could investigate other possible in?uential factors such as the
approach to teaching (Healy and McCutcheon, 2010), instructors’ cultural biases
(Erskine et al., 2003), students’ work experience (Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004)
and the use of student-led versus teacher-led case studies (Adler et al., 2004;
Wynn-Williams et al., 2008). Additionally, one may wish to conduct more research on
the impact of the case approach on students’ learning styles as there is some early
evidence to suggest that the case approach encourages a deep approach to learning
(Sivan et al., 2000). Finally, we investigated students’ perceptions. As rightly pointed
out by Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004, p. 187), perception studies are “based on
self-generated data rather than objective measures of actual bene?ts”. As such, the
?ndings may contain some element of bias. Future work in the area could use more
objective measures of the actual bene?ts, by, linking it to academic performance or an
assessment of speci?c skills by employers.
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Help you to develop skills in interpreting (de?ned as
the ability to understand and decipher data)? 111.21 132.51 21.849 0.064
Develop your listening skills? 108.41 140.39 22.772 0.006
*
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 110.35 139.93 22.536 0.011
* *
Develop your written communication skills? 110.20 134.87 22.126 0.033
* *
Develop your ability to organize data? 110.97 136.60 22.213 0.027
* *
Develop your persuasive skills? 107.19 143.49 23.162 0.002
*
Develop your ability to summarize the available
information?
113.07 125.36 21.053 0.293
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table XI.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
students with prior case
study exposure and
students with no prior
case study exposure
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Notes
1. In late 2012, the MOHE initiated another major review of Accounting Programmes in
Malaysian Public Universities. This review effort is referred to as Halatuju 3. However, the
?nal report has yet to be published at the time this paper was being written.
2. The term “active learning” is de?ned in the Greenwood Dictionary of Education (Collins and
O’Brien, 2003) as “The process of having students engage in some activity that forces
them to re?ect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students
to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skills at handling concepts or
problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or
contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their
learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and
problem solving”.
3. “Passive learning environment” is de?ned by Hwang et al. (2005, p. 152) as “[. . .] the social
and educational systems are not in favour of teaching innovations,” and an environment
where “[. . .] students are not accustomed to participating in classroom activities, nor have
they been encouraged to do so”.
4. In Australia, for example, Cappalletto (2010, p. 10) reports that international
student enrollment in accounting programmes tripled between 1983 to 1993, from 1996 to
1999, it increased by 440 per cent and between 1999 to 2006, the enrolment increased by
128 per cent.
5. For the purposes of this study, “prior exposure to case studies” may refer to exposure of very
limited nature, for example, a mere one page case. Meanwhile the SCMA course utilises case
studies which are substantially more involved with a length of between 8 and 15 pages on
average.
6. For the detailed course outline, please e-mail the ?rst author at: [email protected] or
[email protected]
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Appendix. Questionnaire on the use of case studies
We appreciate your help in completing this questionnaire on students’ perceptions of, and
experiences with, case studies and other teaching methods. The data collected in this survey are
entirely con?dential and will be used solely for research purposes.
Part 1. General background
(Please tick the correct box, or insert the information requested, where appropriate)
1. Gender:
___ Female ___ Male
2. Ethnic Origin:
___ Malay
___ Chinese
___ Indian
___ Others - Please specify_____________
3. Please provide your letter grades (i.e. ‘‘A’’ or ‘‘B+’’ etc.) for each of the following course:
Grade for Costing 1– ACC 3315 ______
Grade for Costing 2 – ACC 3316 ______
Grade for Management Accounting – ACC 3525 ______
(Providing your grades is optional. However, if you do, the research will be able to correlate
the survey findings with your performance).
4. Have you had any previous exposure to the use of case studies?
____ Yes (If ‘Yes’, in what course: ___________) ____ No
Part 2. The use of case studies in the seminar in cost and management accounting course
(ACC 4610)
The following questions relate to your opinions about the use of case studies in the Seminar in
Cost and Management Accounting course in the BACC program only. In answering them, please
ignore the impact that the group process (that is, working in groups) might have had on your
perceptions. This part of the questionnaire is concerned only with assessing your opinions about
the usefulness of the case study approach as a learning method.
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For purposes of the questionnaire, a case study is de?ned as: “an unstructured academic
assignment, containing numerous issues, which requires information to be analyzed and
organized, in an attempt to evaluate and select from alternative courses of action”.
We would like your opinion on each of the following statements. Please choose a number on
the following scale to indicate the strength of your preference and enter it in the box next to each
question. Please treat the distances between the points on the scale as equal:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all Moderate Extensively
To what extent did the use of case studies:
1. improve your judgement skills (defined as
identifying and choosing between available
alternatives?
2. help you to integrate your understanding of the
different components of the course?
3. help you to develop skills in interpreting (defined as
the ability to understand and decipher data)?
4. help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues?
5. improve your analytical skills (defined as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)?
6. develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation?
7. develop your listening skills?
8. help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline?
9. help you to develop your problem-solving skills?
10. enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information?
11. develop your skills in evaluating ideas?
12. increase your motivation to study the course?
13. develop your skills in asking pertinent questions?
(continued)
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To what extent did the use of case studies…
14. encourage you to be an active participant in the
learning process?
15. encourage you to consider the perspectives of
the different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the
case?
16. give you insight into the realities and
difficulties of decision-making in business?
17. develop your written communication skills?
18. help you relate theory to real-life practice?
19. encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations?
20. give you insight into practical business
operations?
21. develop your ability to identify the relevant data
in a case?
22. develop your ability to organize data?
23. develop your problem identification skills?
24. encourage you to think conceptually?
25. encourage you to distinguish facts from
opinions?
26. develop your persuasive skills?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all Moderate Extensively
27. teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity?
(continued)
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28. develop your ability to summarize the available
information?
29. teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems?
30. teach you to integrate your technical knowledge
of the discipline?
31. encourage you to take responsibility for your
own learning?
32. From the preceding questions in Part 2 (1 to 31), please select and enter below the three most valuable
benefits of the case study method to you. Insert the number of the most valuable benefit next to number 1, the
number of the second most valuable benefit next to number 2 and the number of the third most valuable benefit
next to number 3.
1. _______
2. _______
3. _______
33. Are there any other learning benefits, not mentioned in the questionnaire, that you gained from the use of
case studies in this course? If so, please specify.
*The questionnaire has been adapted from Weil et al. (2001)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very interesting Moderate Not at all interesting
34. How interesting was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. in-class problem-solving?
c. group project?
d. listening to student presentations?
Please use the following scale for the following question:
(continued)
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About the authors
Dr Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad is a Professor of accounting, Kuliyyah of Economics and Management
Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research interests include accounting
education, social and environmental accounting and reporting and management accounting
practices. She currently teaches accounting theoryand policy and has taught various other courses in
management accounting and ?nancial reporting at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Maliah Sulaiman, a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certi?ed Accountants (UK), is a
Professor of accounting at the Kuliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences, International
Islamic University Malaysia. She obtains her PhD from University of Otago, New Zealand. She
currently teaches accounting for Islamic Banks and Management Accounting at the
undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research interests include Islamic accounting,
management accounting and environmental accounting.
35. How valuable was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. working on the group project?
c. in-class discussion of articles?
d. listening to student presentations?
e. making in-class presentations?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very valuable Moderate
Not at all valuable
Please use the following scale for the following question:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all difficult Very difficult Moderate
36. How difficult was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. in - class problem - solving?
c. working on the group project?
d. making in - class presentations?
Please use the following scale for the following question:
Thank you for your time and co-operation!
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
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doc_271662736.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to explore accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies in Malaysia, which has a more passive learning environment, and if gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies influenced students’ perceptions.
Accounting Research Journal
Case studies in a passive learning environment: some Malaysian evidence
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad Maliah Sulaiman
Article information:
To cite this document:
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad Maliah Sulaiman , (2013),"Case studies in a passive learning environment: some
Malaysian evidence", Accounting Research J ournal, Vol. 26 Iss 3 pp. 173 - 196
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Case studies in a passive learning
environment: some Malaysian
evidence
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad and Maliah Sulaiman
Department of Accounting, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies in Malaysia, which has a more passive learning environment, and if gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies in?uenced students’ perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey on students’ perceived usefulness of
case studies based on Weil et al. was used with ?nal-year students enrolled in an advanced
management accounting course. The data were gathered over two semesters in 2006/2007.
Findings – Findings reveal that generally students felt that the case method was very useful and
gave them numerous bene?ts. However, there were no signi?cant differences in the perceived
usefulness of case studies across gender and prior academic performance. Some differences were
observed between students with prior exposure to case studies and students without such exposure, in
that students without prior exposure perceived higher bene?ts of case studies.
Research limitations/implications – The study showed that students in a passive learning
environment generally ?nd case studies to be very bene?cial.
Practical implications – The case approach should be used more extensively and introduced
earlier in accounting undergraduate programmes.
Originality/value – This study is one of very few studies which have investigated
students’ perceived usefulness of case studies, in a developing country, Malaysia, where a more
passive learning environment exists – addressing an important gap in the accounting education
literature.
Keywords Case studies, Malaysia, Accounting education, Affective bene?ts, Cognitive bene?ts,
Passive learning environment
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The past two decades have witnessed widespread debate and concern as to whether
accounting education has adequately prepared accounting graduates for professional
work. This concern started in the USA, with the publication of the Bedford report
(American Accounting Association (AAA) Committee on the Future Structure, Content
and Scope of Accounting Education (The Bedford Committee), 1986), and has, spread to
other parts of the world. Lovell (1992) claimed that the educational system of UK
accountants is in a crisis. In Australia, the Mathews Report Mathews et al., (1990) echoed
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
JEL classi?cation – M40, M49
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge assistance received from Dr Zamzulaila Zakaria
from the International Islamic University Malaysia during the initial phase of the study. The
authors are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers and the Journal Editor for the insightful
comments which helped to strengthen the paper.
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 26 No. 3, 2013
pp. 173-196
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/ARJ-10-2012-0082
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similar views and called for a major revamp of accounting education. The report
advocated the use of innovative pedagogy in the teaching of accounting.
Meanwhile, similar calls for accounting education reform to better prepare
graduates for today’s challenging business environment have also been made in
Malaysia. Employers in Malaysia are demanding that graduates need to possess
strong communication, organizational, analytical, research, problem-solving and
technological skills (Accountants’ Today, 2008, pp. 12-14). Technical skills alone, is not
suf?cient.
In response to these calls for reformin accounting education, the Malaysian Ministry
of Higher Education (MOHE) (2007) produced a blueprint, Halatuju 2: Reassessment
Report on Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia 2006. The major
objective is to produce accounting graduates capable of integrating and applying
multi-disciplinary knowledge to solve business problems. Consequently, Halatuju 2
advocates a student-centred learning approach which emphasises “independent
learning, active learning processes, analytical thinking, effective writing ability and
effective oral communication” (MOHE, 2007, p. xvii)[1]. Student-centred learning
approaches comprise various pedagogical techniques which hold the student
responsible for their own learning (Collins and O’Brien, 2003). Examples include the
use of case studies, group work, ?eld work, oral presentations and role plays. The
present study focuses on the usefulness of the case study approach as the method has
been widely acclaimed for its ability to promote deeper learning and the development of
important soft skills (Healy and McCutcheon, 2010).
Prior studies have largely examined the use and bene?ts of the case study approach
in active learning environments[2]. Very limited work has been undertaken on case
study learning in a passive learning environment[3]. We posit that students in a
passive learning environment may ?nd the case study approach to be more dif?cult
and challenging. Consequently, the case study approach, when used in a passive
learning environment, may not yield the same bene?ts as when used in a more
active learning environment, where students assume more responsibility for their own
learning. This is what the present paper attempts to examine.
Speci?cally, the paper has two major objectives. The ?rst is to investigate
accounting students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies and second is to
examine whether gender, prior academic performance and prior exposure to case
studies in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of case studies.
The present study makes a signi?cant contribution in several ways. First, we
examine accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case studies in a context, which
has largely remained unexplored, that of a passive learning environment. Most prior
work has focused on more active learning environments such as the USA and the UK.
O’Sullivan (2004, p. 33) suggested that student-centred learning is a Western learning
approach and “[. . .] may not necessarily transfer to the developing countries, such
as Namibia, where there are limited resources and different learning cultures”. The
widely-held assumption that the case study approach will foster and enhance learning of
all students, including those in a more passive learning environment (as is dominant in
most developing countries, including Malaysia), is not necessarily valid. Consequently,
we argue that it would be critical to demonstrate that the use of the case study approach
will produce the same bene?ts in terms of the development of cognitive, affective and
developmental skills in students in a passive learning environment. The major aim of
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this paper is to contribute to the literature by determining if the bene?ts of case study
learning extend across learning environments.
Second, our work extends the extant literature on accounting students’ perceived
usefulness of case studies. Weil et al. (1999, 2001) investigated the effects of gender and
prior academic performance on students’ perceptions on the use of case studies but the
results in the two studies were different. Meanwhile, Ballantine and McCourt Larres
(2004) suggested that further work in this area should look into factors other than
relevant work experience, which may in?uence students’ perceptions of the usefulness
of case studies. We examine three factors; gender, prior academic performance and prior
exposure to the case method. Finally, the present study responds to the pleas made by
Wilkerson Jr (2010) who stated “we as accounting educators should redouble our efforts
to assure that we are educating our students for practice and that our accounting
curricula are broadly formative”. He goes on to argue “[. . .] our curricula should go well
beyond the acquisition of technical accounting knowledge [. . .]” (p. 11). Hence,
investigating students’ perceived usefulness of the case method in a passive learning
environment and examining whether demographic variables in?uence students’
perceptions will be useful in assisting accounting educators both in the developing
countries (where a more passive learning environment prevails) as well as in the
developed countries, as international student enrollment in their accounting
programmes continue to increase exponentially[4].
2. Literature review
Weil et al. (2004) argued that most of the case study literature in accounting education has
been con?ned to descriptive and/or prescriptive work that discusses the nature of case
studies, their form, level of detail and how to use cases in accounting education. Very
limited work has been done to investigate the usefulness of the case study approach,
despite widespread calls worldwide for the use of cases in accounting education.
A pioneering work on the bene?ts of case studies is that of Libby (1991). Libby
surveyed faculty members at US colleges and universities to identify the bene?ts and
barriers to using the case method and to examine the level and manner of case usage.
Libby categorised case study bene?ts into three broad areas:
.
Affective (student motivation, interest in material, development of con?dence).
.
Skill development (oral communication, written communication and group
interaction skills).
.
Cognitive (problem-solving skills, judgment skills, ability to solve problems
addressing multiple issues, ability to deal with ambiguity, understanding of the
real world, comprehension of material).
The present study uses the same three categories of bene?ts. Other prominent work on
the advantages of the case method include those by Barnes et al. (1994),
Mauffette-Leenders et al. (1999), Golich et al. (2000), Erskine et al. (2003) and Foran
(2001). These authors hail the case method as a very powerful approach that will help
students develop numerous soft skills necessary in today’s working environment.
Unfortunately, these writings have been the experiences of professors in the developed
countries where students are accustomed to a more active learning approach. The
literature is silent on whether such bene?ts extend across more passive learning
environments.
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Weil et al. (2001) used a questionnaire survey to investigate South African students’
perceptions of the use of case studies andwhether gender andprior academic performance
in?uencedsuchperceptions. Theyfoundthat the students perceivedcases to be bene?cial.
The main bene?t was exposure to the real-world context – especially in relation to
decision-making and the next bene?t of case studies was perceived to be that of exposing
students to multiple solutions. Findings also revealed some gender and prior academic
performance differences. Inparticular, belowaverage students perceived that theybene?t
more on three skills; “applying theory to the real world”, “applying knowledge in general”
and “summarising information”. Female students had less favourable perceptions of the
usefulness of case studies. Our present study re-visits gender and prior academic
performance in?uences, albeit in a passive learning environment.
Weil et al. (2004) investigated the perceived usefulness of case studies among
students in the Institute of Chartered Accountants in New Zealand programme, on the
development of various competencies. The authors found that the main perceived
bene?ts were the ability to evaluate situations from more than one perspective and the
ability to consider alternative solutions. The authors also found signi?cant differences
in the perceived usefulness across gender and ?rst language.
Our literature review revealed very limited work on passive learning environments.
The two most recent studies done withaccounting students who were more accustomedto
a passive learning environment are those by Hwang et al. (2005, 2008). Both studies
examined universitystudents inHongKongto investigate whether a cooperative learning
approach can improve students’ ability to apply knowledge learned in class. Results
suggest that students achieve better learning outcomes through cooperative learning
compared to the traditional lecture method. The present study extends this work by
examining the perceived usefulness of case studies in a passive learning environment.
To summarise, the literature review has highlighted many favourable aspects of the
use of case studies in accounting education, and has emphasised how case studies may
be used as a valuable pedagogic tool in accounting education. However, much of the
prior work was limited to conceptual, rather than empirical studies and the few studies
that investigated accounting students’ perceived usefulness of case studies have
focused on students in more active learning environments. Very little is known about
the bene?ts of the case study approach to students more accustomed to the traditional
lecture approach. This is the contribution of the present study. Additionally, studies
that examine whether students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies are
in?uenced by demographic variables, have mixed and inconclusive ?ndings. Also,
only gender and prior academic performance have been commonly studied. The
present study introduces an additional variable – prior exposure to case studies.
3. Hypotheses development
There are two main objectives of the present study. The ?rst objective is to examine
accounting students’ perceptions on the usefulness of case studies, using Libby’s (1991)
bene?t categories of affective, cognitive and skills development bene?ts. The second
objective of the study is to investigate if three demographic variables; gender, prior
academic performance and prior exposure to the case method in?uences accounting
students’ perceived usefulness of the case method. Based on the review of literature,
and following Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004), we develop three hypotheses for
the study.
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Gender
Brazelton (1998) reports that male students are inclined to participate more actively in
class discussions and interrupt more often compared to their female peers. Since male
and female students have different class participation behaviour, we concur with
Weil et al. (2001) that this difference may in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of
case studies as case studies require more active participation. Weil et al. (1999, 2001)
found that students’ perceived usefulness of the case approach is dependent upon their
gender. Weil et al. (2004) found that while the rankings of the bene?ts of case studies
are similar across male and female students, some signi?cant differences were found
for different skills gained from case studies. However, more recent studies ?nd no
association between gender and students’ approaches to learning over time
(Ballantine et al., 2008), student achievement (Fogarty and Goldwater, 2010) and
academic performance (Byrne and Flood, 2008). In light of these inconclusive results,
we investigate whether gender in?uences students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies.
In Malaysia, there is documented evidence of a gender imbalance in private higher
institutions (Tham, 2011). One may assume therefore that this imbalance also extends
to the public higher institutions. Thus, if gender has an in?uence on students’
perceived usefulness of case studies, it is important for accounting educators to
identify this. Thus, we develop the following null hypothesis:
H0a. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between male and female students.
Prior academic performance
The in?uence of prior academic performance on students’ perceived usefulness of case
studies has been investigated by Weil et al. (1999, 2001). However, the studies found
con?icting results. Weil et al. (1999) found no association between prior academic
performance and students’ perceptions on the use of case studies. Meanwhile, Weil et al.
(2004) report that below-average students ?nd case studies more useful in developing a
number of skills. Based on the above, we develop the following null hypothesis:
H0b. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between students of different levels
of prior academic performance.
Prior exposure to case studies
Extant literature often espouses many bene?ts of case studies ranging from
development of skills (oral and written communication, listening, questioning, time
management, argumentative skills) to compelling students to assume responsibility for
their learning, appreciate multiple viewpoints and promote realism
(Mauffette-Leenders et al., 1999; Golich et al., 2000; Weil et al., 2001; Rippin et al.,
2002; Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004; Cullen et al., 2004; Wynn-Williams et al.,
2008; Doran et al., 2011). Thus, it is reasonable to expect that prior exposure to case
studies will not in?uence students’ perceived usefulness of the case approach since all
students will ?nd the case approach useful[5]. Speci?cally, we hypothesise that:
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H0c. There is no signi?cant difference in the perceived cognitive bene?ts, affective
bene?ts and skills development bene?ts from using case studies in an
advanced management accounting course between students who have some
prior exposure to case studies and students who have none.
4. Research methodology
Background to the study – Seminar in Cost and Management Accounting
Seminar in Cost and Management Accounting (SCMA) was a ?nal year compulsory core
course in the four-year Bachelor of Accounting (Honours) programme at the
International Islamic University Malaysia. The medium of instruction at this
university is English. This is the last of a series of four cost and management
accounting courses that need to be taken byall accountingstudents. This is a three credit
hour course, taught twice a week, in sessions of 1 h 20 min each, over a 14-week semester.
The SCMA course comprises only four lectures. The other sessions are used for
discussion of problems or group case analysis and case critique presentations by
students. The course uses the text “Advanced Management Accounting” by Kaplan and
Atkinson (1998) as well as some other cases compiled from various sources. The course
required substantial independent work by the students, to analyse and critique cases
through group presentations, as well as a group project requiring ?eld interviews with
management accountants/?nancial controllers of various organisations. The course
assessment is 5 per cent class participation, 5 per cent group case analysis presentation,
5 per cent group case analysis report, 10 per cent group case critique presentation,
15 per cent written groupproject report, 5 per cent groupproject presentation, 10 per cent
in-class group case analysis assignment and 50 per cent ?nal examination[6].
The four lectures are on Evolution of Management Accounting, Environmental
Management Accounting, Balanced Scorecard and Incentive Compensation.
In addition, there are ten case analysis and critique presentations. There is one open
book, group-based “two-hour mid-term” exam, which is based on a pre-seen case study.
The ?nal closed-book examination is a 3 h comprehensive exam, based on a pre-seen
case and two problem questions.
Participants
Participants inthe study were 231 students enrolled inthe SCMAcourse (ACC4610) at the
International Islamic University, Malaysia. The subjects were drawn from two groups of
students, enrolled in the course in two consecutive semesters. A Mann-Whitney U-test
suggests no signi?cant differences across students in the two semesters.
The lecturers teaching the courses for the two semesters were the same, so were the
course outlines, course content, assessment, text book and all aspects of administering
the survey questionnaire.
Questionnaire survey and procedure
A questionnaire survey on the usefulness of case studies was distributed to all students
in the SCMAcourse in two consecutive semesters, with the total number of respondents
being 231 students. The questionnaire instrument was based on prior work on the case
study approach in accounting education (Libby, 1991; Kimmel, 1995; Weil et al., 2001).
The questionnaire comprises two parts. Part one comprises demographic questions.
The second part contains 36 questions. The ?rst 31 items required students to rate,
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on a Likert scale (ranging from1 – “not at all” to 7 – “extensively” with 4 – “moderate”),
to what extent, they felt that the use of case studies have helped to develop certain skills
(Please refer to the Appendix for the questionnaire instrument). These items are based
on Weil et al.’s (2001) work. Question 32 requires the students to rank the three most
valuable bene?ts of the case study approach. The next question required students to
describe any other learning bene?ts that case studies may have. The remaining three
questions in the instrument will not be used in this paper.
The questionnaire was distributed by the lecturers in class, in week 12 of the
14-week semester, to allow students to have gained suf?cient exposure from the case
study method. Students were allowed to return the questionnaires in the next class
period. While participation in the survey was not compulsory, we emphasised the
importance of this research and encouraged students to respond.
5. Results and discussion
Pro?le of respondents
Table I presents the respondents’ pro?le. Panel A provides the number and percentage
of the respondents, by gender. A signi?cant majority of the respondents were females
(83.1 per cent) compared to only 16.9 per cent males. Panel B displays the distribution
of students across prior academic performance. There were 106 students with a
cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 3.0 and above (51.2 per cent), 58 students
with CGPA between 2.5 and 2.99 (28 per cent), while 43 (20.8 per cent) students had
CGPA of lower than 2.5. Panel C reveals that 193 (84.3 per cent) students had prior
exposure to case studies, while 36 students (15.7 per cent) did not.
Descriptive statistics
As mentioned earlier, we used Libby’s (1991) three categories of bene?ts of case studies;
identifying each of the 31 items in our questionnaire as a cognitive bene?t, affective
bene?t or skills development bene?t. For “skills development”, Libby (1991) de?ned it as
oral communication skills, written communication skills and group interaction skills.
No. %
Panel A
Gender
Male 39 16.9
Female 192 83.1
Total 231 100
Panel B
Prior academic performance
Above average (3.0 or higher) 106 51.2
Average (2.5-2.99) 58 28.0
Below average (below 2.5) 43 20.8
Total 207 100
Panel C
Prior exposure to case studies
Yes 193 84.3
No 36 15.7
Total 229 100
Table I.
Demographic pro?le
of respondents
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We, however, considered a broader set of skills as falling into this category yielding a
total of seven items categorised as “skills development bene?ts”; interpreting, listening,
asking pertinent questions, written communication, ability to organise data, persuasion
skills and ability to summarise information. Listening and asking questions relate
directly to oral communication while the ability to interpret, organise and summarise
data and information are pre-requisites of good written communication skills.
The Webster’s online dictionary de?nes “affective” as “characterised by emotion”
and Libby (1991) included three bene?ts in this category; student motivation, student
interest in materials and development of con?dence. Based on the above, we identi?ed
three items as “affective” bene?ts; “increase motivation to study the course”,
“encourage student to be an active participant” and “encourage students to take
responsibility for their own learning” as these three attributes re?ect a particular state
of emotion (Webster’s Online Dictionary, 2013).
Finally, the remaining 21 items were all classi?ed as “cognitive” bene?ts as these
align with the de?nition in the Webster dictionary that is “knowing or apprehending
by understanding”. Libby (1991, p. 195) listed a total of six bene?ts comprising
problem solving skills, judgement skills, ability to solve problems addressing multiple
issues, development of an understanding of the real world and comprehension of
material. The 21 remaining items on the questionnaire instrument all related to such
aspects of knowledge and thus were classi?ed as cognitive bene?ts.
We rank the bene?ts by their perceived usefulness. Table II displays the descriptive
statistics for the ?ve highest and ?ve lowest ranked cognitive bene?ts. It also shows
the percentage of students rating the particular item as very useful (ratings of 5-7),
moderate (rating of 4) and less useful (ratings of 1-3).
The highest ranked cognitive bene?t pertains to encouragement of adopting a
broader-based perspective by considering the multiple constituents of the case, i.e. the
accountant, the manager, the CEO. The other top-ranked cognitive bene?ts are
development of critical-thinking ability, application of knowledge to new situations,
ability to consolidate prior knowledge on cost and management accounting and
integration of technical knowledge. This is largely consistent with the prior literature
which espouses the development of critical thinking skills as a major bene?t of the case
study approach (Campbell and Lewis, 1991; Kimmel, 1995; Wines et al., 1994).
Table II also reveals that students are of the opinion that the case study approach does
not help themto think conceptually, to develop their problemsolving skills, teach themto
distinguishfacts fromopinions, developtheir skills inevaluatingideals, or to developtheir
ability to synthesise the essential elements in a given situation. One of these items,
“distinguish between facts and opinions”, was also one of the ?ve lowest ranked cognitive
bene?ts of case studies inthe Ballantine and McCourt Larres’ (2004) work. We concur with
the authors that this may be partlyattributedto the limited exposure that students have to
the case approach; consequently, they may not have fully appreciated the bene?ts.
We also agree that another plausible reason could be that the types of cases used
may not have been very suitable for students with little prior exposure to case studies
(cases may be too lengthy or cases may be from a different and unfamiliar context, for
example the use of American cases in Malaysia). Finally, another possible factor may
have been the fact that the students have largely been exposed to a more passive
learning environment and therefore needed time to adjust to, and bene?t from, the
more active learning that is required of the case approach. This is consistent with
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Kember (2000, p. 8) who argued that students who have studied in a passive learning
environment, “[. . .] may not be familiar with such forms of learning [learning methods
which require active participation of students] so will need help and time for
adaptation”.
On the affective bene?ts (Panel B), one interesting ?nding is that the general
ranking of the perceived affective bene?ts are similar with those reported by Ballantine
and McCourt Larres (2004). Although the authors had six items categorised as
“affective” bene?ts, while we only had three, the order of the ranking is the same.
Students generally feel that the most important affective bene?t is that the case study
approach encourages them to assume more responsibility for their own learning. This
is consistent with Adler and Milne (1995). Students are also of the opinion that the case
approach enhances their motivation to study. This ?nding supports the contentions
made by Golich et al. (2000) who argue that the case method forces students to assume
responsibility for their own learning.
Bene?t Mean
a
7/6/5
b
(%)
4
c
(%)
3/2/1
d
(%)
Panel A: cognitive bene?ts
Five highest ranked
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the different parties
(for example, managers, shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved
in the case? 5.62 78.6 15.3 6.1
Help you to develop your ability to think critically about issues? 5.58 83.5 12.6 3.9
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new situations? 5.47 77.8 16.1 6.1
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the discipline? 5.46 75.4 20.6 3.9
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of the discipline? 5.42 74.0 19.9 6.1
Five lowest ranked
Encourage you to think conceptually? 5.18 77.1 18.6 4.3
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 5.08 83.9 11.6 4.5
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 4.96 67.5 23.7 8.8
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 4.92 77.0 18.3 4.8
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the essential elements
of a given situation? 4.77 70.7 21.8 7.4
Panel B: “affective” bene?ts
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 5.42 82.7 13.9 3.5
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning process? 5.07 58.9 29.0 12.1
Increase your motivation to study the course 4.77 57.1 22.9 19.9
Panel C: skills development
Help you to develop skills in interpreting ? 5.51 79.9 14.0 6.1
Develop your written communication skills? 5.45 73.5 20.0 6.5
Develop your ability to summarize the available information? 5.36 76.6 17.7 5.6
Develop your ability to organize data? 5.27 73.2 18.6 8.2
Develop your listening skills? 5.09 50.2 28.4 21.4
Develop your persuasive skills? 4.96 60.4 30.0 9.7
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 4.84 58.9 29.0 12.1
Notes:
a
The mean ?gure here represents the mean for the entire sample of 231 respondents on each
item in the questionnaire;
b
?gures in this column denote the percentage of respondents rating each
item as 5, 6 or 7;
c
this denotes the percentage of respondents who rated 4 for each item;
d
this denotes
the percentage of respondents who rated the items 1, 2 or 3
Table II.
Ranking of students’
perception of the bene?ts
from using case studies
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On the skills development bene?ts, one major difference from the results of
Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004) and Weil et al. (2001), lies in the ranking of the
written communication skills. The students in our study attached more importance to
the impact of cases on the development of their written communication skills. This
may well be due to the fact that our students are non-native speakers of English and
yet the medium of instruction at the sample university is English. Thus, they may be
more inclined to notice an improvement in their written communication skills
compared to students in other countries where many students are native speakers of
English. Among the skills bene?t, written communication skills was ranked second
while the most important skill bene?t is skills in interpreting and the lowest ranked
skill bene?t is asking pertinent questions. This may also suggest that students who are
more accustomed to a passive learning environment will need time to acquire the
ability to ask questions in class, thus perceiving that they have bene?ted least on
this skill.
Hypotheses testing
As in Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004) we performed a Mann-Whitney U and the
Kruskal-Wallis test of signi?cant differences to ascertain if differences exist in
students’ perceptions of the bene?ts of the case approach, by gender, prior academic
performance and prior exposure to case studies.
Table III presents the Mann-Whitney U-test results for cognitive bene?ts. There is
no signi?cant difference between male and female students, thus we fail to reject H0a.
This suggests that gender does not have a signi?cant impact on students’ perceptions
of the cognitive bene?ts. The data reported in Tables IV and V suggest a similar
situation, but for affective bene?ts and skills development bene?ts, respectively. This
is contrary to some earlier studies. Weil et al. (2001) found that there were some
statistically signi?cant differences between male and female students’ perceptions for
some bene?ts of the case study approach. This ?nding is also surprising in light of
Brazelton’s (1998) work, which found that male students are involved more often and
interrupt more often. Based on this, one would then expect signi?cant differences
between males and females on the perceived bene?ts of case studies. One possible
explanation for this is that the students in the present study have been more
accustomed to a passive learning environment where the dominant teaching approach
has been the traditional lecture. Thus, both male and female students ?nd the case
approach very useful and consequently, there are no signi?cant differences across
gender. These ?ndings are however similar to some more recent studies investigating
the effects of gender differences in accounting education in general (Ballantine et al.,
2008; Byrne and Flood, 2008; Fogarty and Goldwater, 2010).
Meanwhile Tables VI-VIII report the results of the Kruskal-Wallis test for prior
academic performance. Again, the results showed no signi?cant differences across the
three groups of students. We fail to reject H0b. This suggests that regardless of
academic performance, students generally found the case method to be useful. Again
this supports the theoretical literature on the many advantages attributed to the case
approach. Mauffette-Leenders et al. (1999, pp. 5-6) suggested that there exists a whole
inventory of skills developed by the case method; analytical, decision-making,
application, oral communication, time management interpersonal, creative and written
communication skills.
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Finally, Tables IX-XI report the results of the Mann-Whitney U-test for prior case
exposure. Interestingly, this is the part where there are many signi?cant differences. On
cognitive bene?ts, there are signi?cant differences in the students’ perceived usefulness
on ?ve items – the ability to integrate understanding of the different components of the
courses, critical thinking ability, the ability to make decisions with incomplete
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
a
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as identifying
and choosing between available alternatives)? 109.08 117.41 20.735 0.462
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 113.86 115.23 20.121 0.904
Help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues? 117.58 115.68 20.168 0.867
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)? 107.75 117.03 20.812 0.417
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 97.14 118.67 21.893 0.058
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline? 118.30 111.92 20.573 0.567
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 107.93 115.77 20.683 0.495
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 115.90 115.42 20.042 0.966
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 110.74 117.07 20.551 0.582
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the
different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the case? 112.49 116.12 20.322 0.748
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties of
decision-making in business? 105.13 117.62 21.101 0.271
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 104.42 118.35 21.227 0.220
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 108.31 116.97 20.767 0.443
Give you insight into practical business operations? 107.09 117.16 20.885 0.376
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data in a
case? 120.26 115.14 20.452 0.651
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 119.6 115.25 20.393 0.694
Encourage you to think conceptually? 109.32 116.13 20.599 0.549
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 106.45 115.52 20.803 0.422
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 117.40 115.72 20.149 0.882
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 102.08 118.83 21.474 0.141
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of
the discipline? 108.01 117.62 20.853 0.393
Notes:
a
The Mann-Whitney U-test is corrected for ties; this means that in the event of tied values, they
are each assigned the average of the ranks had no ties occurred; for example the data set {100, 96, 57,
100, 82, 100} has values of 100 tied for the fourth, ?fth and sixth places, respectively; since the mean of
4, 5 and 6 is 5, the ranks assigned to the raw data values above would be as follows {5, 3, 1, 5, 2, 5}
Table III.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between male and
female students
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information, the ability to distinguish facts from opinions and the ability to deal with
ambiguous situations. On affective bene?ts, there is one signi?cant difference for
encouraging active participation in the learning process. Finally, on skills development,
students with no prior case exposure found that the perceived usefulness of case studies
in ?ve different areas to be signi?cantly higher than the perceived usefulness among
students with prior case exposure. Speci?cally, students who have not beentaught using
case studies prior to the SCMA class, perceived higher bene?ts of the case method in
developing questioning skills, listening skills, written communication skills, the ability
to organise data and persuasion skills. Thus, H0c was rejected, suggesting that there is
a signi?cant difference in the perceived usefulness of case studies between students
with no prior exposure to case studies and those with some prior exposure.
6. Conclusions, limitations and future research
The present study contributes valuable insights into accounting students’ perceptions
of the usefulness of the case approach. Though this issue has been investigated
previously, most prior work has been done in developed countries where active
learning is predominant (Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004; Weil et al., 2001, 2004).
The major contribution of the present study lies in its context, Malaysia, where like
most developing countries, students are more passive learners. As such, in responding
to calls for accounting education reform, accounting educators in developing countries
need to understand whether the case approach will yield the many bene?ts often
attributed to it, when students have been more accustomed to passive, rather than
active learning.
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Help you to develop skills in interpreting (de?ned as the ability
to understand and decipher data)? 103.66 117.84 21.244 0.214
Develop your listening skills? 110.42 115.32 20.430 0.667
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 125.12 114.15 20.964 0.335
Develop your written communication skills? 113.37 115.32 20.173 0.863
Develop your ability to organize data? 118.96 115.40 20.316 0.752
Develop your persuasive skills? 117.82 113.21 20.412 0.680
Develop your ability to summarize the available information? 106.26 117.98 21.029 0.304
Table V.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
male and female students
Mean rank
Corrected for
ties
Bene?ts of case studies
Male
(n ¼ 39)
Female
(n ¼ 192) Z
Sig.
( p)
Increase your motivation to study the course 113.79 116.45 20.232 0.816
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning
process? 131.86 112.26 21.711 0.087
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 71.14 59.23 21.360 0.174
Table IV.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between male and
female students
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Our results suggest that students do perceive the case approach as generating many
bene?ts including improving their critical-thinking and written communication skills.
There is no signi?cant difference across gender and prior academic performance.
Differences were found only between students with and without prior exposure to case
studies.
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above
average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below
average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as
identifying and choosing between available
alternatives)? 107.04 97.02 105.92 1.188 0.552
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 107.01 93.71 108.15 2.350 0.309
Help you to develop your ability to think
critically about issues? 105.75 107.14 95.45 1.219 0.544
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the
ability to think in a logical and enquiring
manner)? 107.04 92.16 110.15 3.205 0.201
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 101.16 97.04 115.41 2.686 0.261
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of
the discipline? 101.99 97.01 103.94 0.430 0.807
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 106.36 98.25 98.62 0.989 0.610
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 106.84 98.48 102.10 0.822 0.663
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 103.95 97.66 112.66 1.620 0.445
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of
the different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the
case? 106.89 95.64 105.81 1.522 0.467
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties
of decision-making in business? 101.23 103.05 109.69 0.659 0.719
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 106.17 100.48 103.41 0.365 0.833
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 102.15 101.02 110.14 0.740 0.691
Give you insight into practical business
operations? 103.84 98.63 109.12 0.828 0.661
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data
in a case? 105.15 106.78 97.42 0.735 0.693
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 107.96 104.05 94.16 1.768 0.413
Encourage you to think conceptually? 103.43 100.64 105.08 0.160 0.923
Encourage you to distinguish facts from
opinions? 103.54 102.07 100.58 0.086 0.958
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 103.96 107.66 99.16 0.539 0.764
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 107.42 96.70 105.99 1.446 0.485
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge
of the discipline? 108.45 96.70 102.88 1.589 0.452
Table VI.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between average,
above average and below
average students
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Our results have major implications. First, accounting students do perceive case
studies as being bene?cial for them even though these students have been largely
exposed to a passive learning environment. This suggests that case studies are a useful
pedagogy that bene?ts students from various learning backgrounds and thus, should
be used more extensively to produce graduates who are able to think critically, and
possess good communication skills. The second implication is the case study pedagogy
is applicable to accounting students irrespective of differences in gender, prior
academic performance, and prior exposure to case studies. The case study method thus
should be used in more courses in the undergraduate accounting programme so that
students are exposed to this method early in their degree programme. Besides, the
positive ?ndings of the usefulness of case studies provide strong support for a
capstone course that uses case studies as the major pedagogy to ensure that students
are able to apply their knowledge of the various sub-disciplines of accounting and
allied areas such as auditing, tax, ?nancial and managerial accounting, marketing,
human resource management, strategic management and ethics, in attempting to solve
real-world problems. Such a course would certainly help ful?ll the accounting
educators’ responsibility to prepare accounting students for a professional career
(Wilkerson Jr, 2010). These results lend support for the Integrated Case Study course
introduced as a policy recommendation of Halatuju 2: Reassessment Report on
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Increase your motivation to study the
course
102.01 100.05 114.22 1.704 0.427
Encourage you to be an active
participant in the learning process?
100.30 108.80 104.37 0.815 0.665
Encourage you to take responsibility
for your own learning?
57.70 64.02 55.85 1.067 0.587
Table VII.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between average,
above average and below
average students
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies
Above
average
(n ¼ 106)
Average
(n ¼ 58)
Below
average
(n ¼ 43) x
2
Asymp.
sig.
Help you to develop skills in interpreting
(de?ned as the ability to understand and
decipher data)? 104.44 104.85 101.76 0.084 0.959
Develop your listening skills? 97.92 106.04 108.87 1.411 0.494
Develop your skills in asking pertinent
questions? 104.03 104.47 103.30 0.010 0.995
Develop your written communication skills? 99.63 109.70 107.08 1.300 0.522
Develop your ability to organize data? 106.81 103.41 97.86 0.746 0.689
Develop your persuasive skills? 99.28 106.03 103.18 0.545 0.761
Develop your ability to summarize the
available information? 109.18 88.53 112.09 5.796 0.055
Table VIII.
Kruskal-Wallis test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
average, above average
and below average
students
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Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Improve your judgment skills (de?ned as identifying
and choosing between available alternatives)? 112.94 126.06 21.130 0.258
Help you to ingrate your understanding of the
different components of the courses? 109.74 137.39 22.371 0.018
* *
Help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues? 111.30 134.86 22.038 0.042
* *
Improve your analytical skills (de?ned as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)? 113.00 122.49 20.817 0.414
Develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation? 113.71 115.51 20.154 0.877
Help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline? 109.82 124.12 21.237 0.216
Help you to develop your problem-solving skills? 113.67 112.56 20.096 0.924
Enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information? 109.32 142.14 22.838 0.005
*
Develop your skills in evaluating ideas? 113.59 122.56 20.762 0.446
Encourage you to consider the perspectives of the
different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the case? 111.41 130.96 21.691 0.091
Give you insight into the realities and dif?culties of
decision-making in business? 112.82 123.46 20.915 0.360
Help you relate theory to real-life practice? 113.45 123.33 20.850 0.396
Encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations? 112.48 125.61 21.122 0.262
Give you insight into practical business operations? 113.40 120.35 20.602 0.547
Develop your ability to identify the relevant data in a
case? 112.89 126.31 21.155 0.248
Develop your problem identi?cation skills? 111.86 131.83 21.725 0.085
Encourage you to think conceptually? 112.42 122.69 20.880 0.379
Encourage you to distinguish facts from opinions? 109.00 134.01 22.185 0.029
* *
Teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity? 110.11 141.22 22.689 0.007
*
Teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems? 112.80 126.78 21.199 0.230
Teach you to integrate your technical knowledge of
the discipline? 113.22 124.56 20.983 0.326
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table IX.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of cognitive
bene?ts in using case
studies between students
with prior case study
exposure and students
with no prior case study
exposure
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Increase your motivation to study the course 112.68 127.46 21.262 0.207
Encourage you to be an active participant in the learning process? 108.47 147.76 23.344 0.001
*
Encourage you to take responsibility for your own learning? 60.24 65.08 20.565 0.572
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table X.
X Mann-Whitney U-test
of differences in the
perception of “affective”
bene?ts in using case
studies between students
with prior case study
exposure and students
with no prior case study
exposure
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Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia 2006 (MOHE, 2007). The
course comprises solely of case studies. Thus, accounting educators and policy-makers
in both developed and developing countries should be re-assured that the case study
method is useful and relevant across learning environments, gender, different levels of
academic performance and irrespective of whether students have prior exposure to the
method.
The present study, however, is subject to several limitations. First, the survey
was conducted in a single university for a single advanced accounting course. Thus, it
is desirable that future research utilise a larger sample of accounting students in
various courses and in different universities. However, the use of a single institution
does provide “the advantage of a constant institutional context” (Healy and
McCutcheon, 2010, p. 565). The second limitation relates to the uneven distribution of
the sample respondents, in particular, the high number of female students in the
sample compared to male students (192 females and 39 males). This may have some
impact on the results of the statistical tests and is therefore a limitation of the study.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to avoid this as this was the gender distribution of
the students enrolled in the course at the time of the study. This gender imbalance,
however is true of the Bachelor of Accounting programme at the sample university at
that time. A third limitation is that the present study only examined three demographic
variables. Future studies could investigate other possible in?uential factors such as the
approach to teaching (Healy and McCutcheon, 2010), instructors’ cultural biases
(Erskine et al., 2003), students’ work experience (Ballantine and McCourt Larres, 2004)
and the use of student-led versus teacher-led case studies (Adler et al., 2004;
Wynn-Williams et al., 2008). Additionally, one may wish to conduct more research on
the impact of the case approach on students’ learning styles as there is some early
evidence to suggest that the case approach encourages a deep approach to learning
(Sivan et al., 2000). Finally, we investigated students’ perceptions. As rightly pointed
out by Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2004, p. 187), perception studies are “based on
self-generated data rather than objective measures of actual bene?ts”. As such, the
?ndings may contain some element of bias. Future work in the area could use more
objective measures of the actual bene?ts, by, linking it to academic performance or an
assessment of speci?c skills by employers.
Mean rank
Bene?ts of case studies Yes No Z Sig. ( p)
Help you to develop skills in interpreting (de?ned as
the ability to understand and decipher data)? 111.21 132.51 21.849 0.064
Develop your listening skills? 108.41 140.39 22.772 0.006
*
Develop your skills in asking pertinent questions? 110.35 139.93 22.536 0.011
* *
Develop your written communication skills? 110.20 134.87 22.126 0.033
* *
Develop your ability to organize data? 110.97 136.60 22.213 0.027
* *
Develop your persuasive skills? 107.19 143.49 23.162 0.002
*
Develop your ability to summarize the available
information?
113.07 125.36 21.053 0.293
Note: Signi?cant difference at:
*
1 and
* *
5 per cent
Table XI.
Mann-Whitney U-test of
differences in the
perception of skills
development in using
case studies between
students with prior case
study exposure and
students with no prior
case study exposure
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Notes
1. In late 2012, the MOHE initiated another major review of Accounting Programmes in
Malaysian Public Universities. This review effort is referred to as Halatuju 3. However, the
?nal report has yet to be published at the time this paper was being written.
2. The term “active learning” is de?ned in the Greenwood Dictionary of Education (Collins and
O’Brien, 2003) as “The process of having students engage in some activity that forces
them to re?ect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students
to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skills at handling concepts or
problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or
contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their
learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and
problem solving”.
3. “Passive learning environment” is de?ned by Hwang et al. (2005, p. 152) as “[. . .] the social
and educational systems are not in favour of teaching innovations,” and an environment
where “[. . .] students are not accustomed to participating in classroom activities, nor have
they been encouraged to do so”.
4. In Australia, for example, Cappalletto (2010, p. 10) reports that international
student enrollment in accounting programmes tripled between 1983 to 1993, from 1996 to
1999, it increased by 440 per cent and between 1999 to 2006, the enrolment increased by
128 per cent.
5. For the purposes of this study, “prior exposure to case studies” may refer to exposure of very
limited nature, for example, a mere one page case. Meanwhile the SCMA course utilises case
studies which are substantially more involved with a length of between 8 and 15 pages on
average.
6. For the detailed course outline, please e-mail the ?rst author at: [email protected] or
[email protected]
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Appendix. Questionnaire on the use of case studies
We appreciate your help in completing this questionnaire on students’ perceptions of, and
experiences with, case studies and other teaching methods. The data collected in this survey are
entirely con?dential and will be used solely for research purposes.
Part 1. General background
(Please tick the correct box, or insert the information requested, where appropriate)
1. Gender:
___ Female ___ Male
2. Ethnic Origin:
___ Malay
___ Chinese
___ Indian
___ Others - Please specify_____________
3. Please provide your letter grades (i.e. ‘‘A’’ or ‘‘B+’’ etc.) for each of the following course:
Grade for Costing 1– ACC 3315 ______
Grade for Costing 2 – ACC 3316 ______
Grade for Management Accounting – ACC 3525 ______
(Providing your grades is optional. However, if you do, the research will be able to correlate
the survey findings with your performance).
4. Have you had any previous exposure to the use of case studies?
____ Yes (If ‘Yes’, in what course: ___________) ____ No
Part 2. The use of case studies in the seminar in cost and management accounting course
(ACC 4610)
The following questions relate to your opinions about the use of case studies in the Seminar in
Cost and Management Accounting course in the BACC program only. In answering them, please
ignore the impact that the group process (that is, working in groups) might have had on your
perceptions. This part of the questionnaire is concerned only with assessing your opinions about
the usefulness of the case study approach as a learning method.
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For purposes of the questionnaire, a case study is de?ned as: “an unstructured academic
assignment, containing numerous issues, which requires information to be analyzed and
organized, in an attempt to evaluate and select from alternative courses of action”.
We would like your opinion on each of the following statements. Please choose a number on
the following scale to indicate the strength of your preference and enter it in the box next to each
question. Please treat the distances between the points on the scale as equal:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all Moderate Extensively
To what extent did the use of case studies:
1. improve your judgement skills (defined as
identifying and choosing between available
alternatives?
2. help you to integrate your understanding of the
different components of the course?
3. help you to develop skills in interpreting (defined as
the ability to understand and decipher data)?
4. help you to develop your ability to think critically
about issues?
5. improve your analytical skills (defined as the ability
to think in a logical and enquiring manner)?
6. develop your ability to synthesize (combine) the
essential elements of a given situation?
7. develop your listening skills?
8. help you to consolidate your prior knowledge of the
discipline?
9. help you to develop your problem-solving skills?
10. enable you to take decisions with incomplete
information?
11. develop your skills in evaluating ideas?
12. increase your motivation to study the course?
13. develop your skills in asking pertinent questions?
(continued)
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To what extent did the use of case studies…
14. encourage you to be an active participant in the
learning process?
15. encourage you to consider the perspectives of
the different parties (for example, managers,
shareholders, accountant, CEO) involved in the
case?
16. give you insight into the realities and
difficulties of decision-making in business?
17. develop your written communication skills?
18. help you relate theory to real-life practice?
19. encourage you to apply your knowledge to new
situations?
20. give you insight into practical business
operations?
21. develop your ability to identify the relevant data
in a case?
22. develop your ability to organize data?
23. develop your problem identification skills?
24. encourage you to think conceptually?
25. encourage you to distinguish facts from
opinions?
26. develop your persuasive skills?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all Moderate Extensively
27. teach you how to deal with situations involving
uncertainty and ambiguity?
(continued)
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28. develop your ability to summarize the available
information?
29. teach you that there is seldom only one correct
solution to business problems?
30. teach you to integrate your technical knowledge
of the discipline?
31. encourage you to take responsibility for your
own learning?
32. From the preceding questions in Part 2 (1 to 31), please select and enter below the three most valuable
benefits of the case study method to you. Insert the number of the most valuable benefit next to number 1, the
number of the second most valuable benefit next to number 2 and the number of the third most valuable benefit
next to number 3.
1. _______
2. _______
3. _______
33. Are there any other learning benefits, not mentioned in the questionnaire, that you gained from the use of
case studies in this course? If so, please specify.
*The questionnaire has been adapted from Weil et al. (2001)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very interesting Moderate Not at all interesting
34. How interesting was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. in-class problem-solving?
c. group project?
d. listening to student presentations?
Please use the following scale for the following question:
(continued)
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About the authors
Dr Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad is a Professor of accounting, Kuliyyah of Economics and Management
Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research interests include accounting
education, social and environmental accounting and reporting and management accounting
practices. She currently teaches accounting theoryand policy and has taught various other courses in
management accounting and ?nancial reporting at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
Nik Nazli Nik Ahmad is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Maliah Sulaiman, a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certi?ed Accountants (UK), is a
Professor of accounting at the Kuliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences, International
Islamic University Malaysia. She obtains her PhD from University of Otago, New Zealand. She
currently teaches accounting for Islamic Banks and Management Accounting at the
undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research interests include Islamic accounting,
management accounting and environmental accounting.
35. How valuable was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. working on the group project?
c. in-class discussion of articles?
d. listening to student presentations?
e. making in-class presentations?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very valuable Moderate
Not at all valuable
Please use the following scale for the following question:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not at all difficult Very difficult Moderate
36. How difficult was:
a. the case analysis component?
b. in - class problem - solving?
c. working on the group project?
d. making in - class presentations?
Please use the following scale for the following question:
Thank you for your time and co-operation!
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
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doc_271662736.pdf