The Status of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the Accounting Discipline: A Case Study of Academics’ Perspectives
Date
2019-04-08
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Abstract
There is paucity of scholarship in accounting education (Rebele & St. Pierre, 2015). This qualitative case study (Merriam, 2009) explored the perception of accounting academic’s engagement in scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The purposes were to ascertain if SoTL had an impact on instructional strategies used, motivation to attend professional development programs, and links to teaching awards, promotion, and tenure. Mezirow's (1991) transformative learning theory was chosen to be the theoretical framework underpinning this research. Semi-structured interviews and documents were collected from fourteen accounting academics to gauge the perceptions of engagement with SoTL initiatives. Key findings were that the primary reasons for accounting academics to engage in SoTL were their intrinsic motivation for teaching and their desire for collaboration and discussion with peers. Two impediments to SoTL were the lack of reward in the tenure system and the lack of educational training of accounting academics. In fact, this study found that accounting education suffers from an underdeveloped definition of high-quality teaching. Moreover, scholarly teaching (where instructional strategies are research-informed through literature review, including peer collaboration and review) as well as scholarship of teaching and learning (where systematic investigation to create deep learning in one’s own classroom) are completely absent. However, Pathway Commission Report (2012) and AACSB accounting accreditation standards do place special emphasis on creating: pedagogical experts in the accounting domain in addition to accounting doctoral degree holders furthering traditional disciplinary research and professional practitioners. Consequently, further research needs to be aligned to investigate threshold concepts to redesign accounting curriculum and formulate evidence-based pedagogy. Finally, formal teacher professional development programs should be organized to advance growth and introduction of SoTL in accounting education on university campuses.
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scholarship of teaching and learning; accounting education research; pedagogy; professional development; tenure, promotion, and teaching awards.
Citation
Anjum, S. (2019). The Status of scholarship of teaching and learning in the accounting discipline: A case study of academics’ perspectives (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.