Empirical essays on team learning in accounting education

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

The Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study: Early Impact and Implementation Findings

This report presents early findings from a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. On average, the programs produced a positive, statistically significant impact on reading comprehension among students

The Evaluation of Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs: Findings After the First Year of Implementation

This report presents one-year implementation and impact findings on two supplemental academic instruction approaches developed for after-school settings -- one for math and one for reading. Compared with regular after-school programming, the supplemental math program had impacts on student SAT 10 test scores and the supplemental reading program did not --although the reading program had some effect on reading fluency

HER Initiative to Lead Change: The Power of Education

The purpose of this report is to measure the successes of HER's Cohort One in achieving the program goals.The first section, "At a Glance", presents a brief overview of the key findings from the three chapters, as well as best practices and lessons learned from the pilot program beneficial for future HER cohorts and other programs. It also details the participants' activities after program graduation. The concluding section summarizes the best practices and lessons learned and draws conclusions from Cohort One's program experience.Three appendices offer technical and background information on the program. Appendix I analyzes key components of the HER program, with reflections on each component from the key stakeholders such as HER students, guardians, and mentors. Appendix II covers the education context in Ethiopia and the need for the HER program. It also presents key information about the two schools in the HER program: School A and School B. Finally, Appendix III describes the evaluation methodology and limitations

A systematic review of pedagogical approaches that can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms with a particular focus on peer group interactive approaches

The broad background to this review is a long history of concepts of special pupils and special education, and a faith in special pedagogical approaches. The rise of inclusive schools and some important critiques of special pedagogy (e.g. Hart, 1996; Norwich and Lewis, 2001; Thomas and Loxley, 2001) have raised the profile of teaching approaches that ordinary teachers can and do use to include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Inclusive education itself is increasingly conceived as being about the quality of learning and participation that goes on in inclusive schools rather than simplistic matters of where children are place

Connecting Response to Intervention and Grade Retention: Implications for School Leaders

Within all classrooms of public schools, teachers greet general education students acknowledging broad differences in their learning readiness and social skills (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2010; Martin, 2010). The needs of some students may be so diverse that educators find implementing differentiated instructional strategies with integrity extremely difficult. Many individually research-based strategies have been implemented to provide helpful instruction to all learners. This paper presents the concept of a merger between two of these strategies: Response to Intervention (RTI) and grade retention. As a result, the conceptual framework for this manuscript is anchored within the RTI and grade retention literatures, highlighting their reported effectiveness on student outcomes