An investigation of prescribed managerial accounting and finance textbooks used by B.Com accounting students at some universities in South Africa.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Department of Education)) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.The selection of textbooks used at tertiary institutions in South Africa, in the discipline of Accounting, is an area where there is a lack of published studies. Factors citied by academics for selecting prescribed textbooks are the cost of the textbooks, comprehensive coverage of relevant topics and applicability to the South African context. Other criteria, such as readability, are often not taken into consideration. Students feel that the prescribed textbooks are prescribed for the wrong reasons and find them difficult to read and learn from. The research reviews the Managerial Accounting and Finance (MAF) textbooks used at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and other universities. Observations about the textbooks, from staff and students are considered from interviews

School matriculation as an indicator of success in an accounting programme at Technikon Natal

Bibliography: leaves 83-87.The high failure rate of students at Technikons is of great concern to all who are involved in tertiary education. If the current entrance requirements, which are predominately based on matriculation results, are failing to select successful students, these entrance requirements need to be investigated to determine if they are accurate predictors of success. The research reviews the current entrance requirements to Accounting programmes offered at Technikon Natal, and tests the reliability of these requirements, namely matriculation results, as predictors of success in the programmes. Predictor variables such as overall matriculation results, individual subjects or combinations of subjects are considered. The research used students registered for an Accounting diploma at Technikon Natal from 1996 to 1998. The progress of these students was monitored over the period of three years required to complete the Accounting programmes. Overall matriculation results, measured by Swedish points, and subjects studied for matriculation were used to determine if a correlation exists between these results and the number of subjects passed in each year of study. The overall conclusion is that students who have 26 Swedish points and above and/or Accounting matriculation results of a HG-D or SG-C pass more subjects in each year of the three-year Accounting programme than those students who have not achieved these results. The concurrent study of Accounting, Mathematics and Economics was significant for the second and third year of study. A degree of caution is necessary here as students with lower results were also successful in the completion of the Accounting programmes within three years

Managerial accounting and financial management students' experiences of learning in a writing intensive tutorial programme.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.Managerial and Financial Management (MAF) has traditionally been perceived by students as a difficult subject. Students do not fully grasp the underlying disciplinary concepts and struggle to transfer knowledge from one context to another. There is a dearth of research, particularly in South Africa, into how students learn in accounting programmes. This study sought to explore MAF students’ experiences of learning in a Writing Intensive Tutorial (WIT) programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The WIT programme is based on the principle of using informal exploratory writing, writing-to-learn, to support students’ learning of MAF. Informal writing is low stakes, ungraded, and encourages critical thinking and the learning of concepts, rather than focusing on grammatical correctness. The study was informed by the tenets of social constructivism and was conducted within a qualitative interpretative framework. Principles of case study research were applied in the data generation process. Purposive sampling was applied that reflected the MAF population in regard to race and gender demographics and academic ability. The participants were 15 MAF students who voluntarily participated in an 18-week WIT programme. Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) (Northcutt & McCoy, 2004) was used for the research design and as a data analysis tool. Following IQA protocol, focus groups were used to generate affinities (themes) of students’ experiences of learning in the WIT programme. From the affinities generated a system diagram was constructed. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews were conducted at the end of the programme to further probe participants’ learning experiences. The primary affinity driving the system was the programme structure. which drove the other affinities – understanding of concepts, challenging the participants, the written tasks undertaken (secondary drivers), making learning fun, improved study techniques and test preparation, criticism of the programme (secondary outcomes), increased personal confidence and the interactive nature of the programme (primary outcomes). The thesis concludes with a proposal of an inductively theorised model. The model derives from the major findings in the study regarding students’ experiences of learning in the WIT programme. The model offers insights for higher education programme designs that utilise writing-to-learn pedagogies and can provide opportunities for students’ to develop deep, conceptual learning in higher education

Writing-to-learn in a higher education writing intensive tutorial programme: student collaboration and confidence building

This paper emanates from a study, which focused on Managerial Accounting and Financial Management students’ experiences of learning in a Writing Intensive Tutorial (WIT) Programme. Higher education students often do not appreciate or realise the benefits of working collaboratively with other students. The WIT Programme was based on the principles of collaborative participation among the students and writing-to-learn. Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) (Northcutt and McCoy 2004) informed the research design and data analysis. Following IQA protocols, nine affinities (themes) were generated to describe students’ experiences of learning in the WIT programme. This paper reports on the affinities of personal confidence and interaction. Findings suggest that collaborative engagement in writing to learn activities, designed according to tight specifications facilitates a process of focused and directed interaction among students. This has important implications for higher education programme design especially in professional programmes where the requirements of the profession include interaction and personal confidence