Academic Technology

This is a PDF file of 'Online vs. Face to Face: Is There a Difference in How Accounting and Finance Students Learn in an Online vs. Face-to-Face Setting?' slides from a presentation at the Innovative Teaching Methods Conference of the American Accounting Association: Southeast Region on March 31, 2006 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Scholars in behavioral accounting, finance, and economics have begun to investigate how novices and experts learn in a wide range of accounting and financial settings. This session provided an initial discussion of the different learning processes for accounting and finance students enrolled in online vs. in-class (face-to-face) formats.

As educators, our primary goal is to facilitate the learning of our students. An emerging method of delivery known as online education, where the teacher and student may never have face-to-face contact; this online format is a increasingly provided by all different types of colleges and universities across the country. How does this alternate delivery method affect the learning process of students? Or does the learning technique of students have an influence on the way online courses are delivered?

The focus of this session was to review the main studies within the literature of learning as it relates to online delivery and face-to-face delivery of courses. One outcome of the session was to share with participants the main themes and findings from this collection of studies. This discussion presented scholars with a future avenue of research and a valuable source for improving their own teaching experience.

Keywords: Online class, Face to Face, Internet Classes, Learning, Education, Accounting, Finance, Students, Behavioral Finance, Behavioral Accounting, Behavioral Economics

North-West University in South Africa is committed to expanding use of learning technologies for contact and distance education students by augmenting the existing NWU teaching and learning policy with an e-learning policy. The School of Continuing Teacher Education at North-West University is currently training about 24 000 in-service teacher students through Open Distance Learning. Only a few students submit assignments in typed format and seldom electronically. Students rarely use electronic technologies to augment their learning, and the SCTE employs few to support students. This does not comply with the South African Government’s policy on e-Education that demands information and communication technology mastery in teacher training.
The aim of this research was integration of learning technologies in open distance learning at SCTE NWU through recommendations compiled in a sociologically transformative emergent implementation framework. The researcher followed a concurrent mixed-method sociologically transformative approach, focussing on the use of technology for social empowerment to cross the digital divide, through a theoretical lens of ICT for development.
The lived experience in the natural setting of distance education students, lecturers, and involved stakeholders was used as initial data collection, informed by a continuous literature study of emergent learning technology use.
Purposeful sampling was used during participant selection. The role of the researcher was that of participant observer, interviewer, and human instrument, from a position of methodological pragmatism as a method of inquiry. Using a design-based research approach, the thesis addresses the main research question through five research papers; each addressing one of the sub-questions as design-based research cycles, while collectively addressing the research problem to address the main research question. Nonstandardised measuring instruments were developed based on themes identified from literature and the analysis of qualitative data. Significant barriers to population-wide ICT adoption exist. Strong intentions of perseverance in attaining functional computer literacy are evident. Support and enablement are required to promote trust to attempt using computers, necessary to obtain self-confidence through accomplishment. In this way perseverance to attain functional computer literacy may be cultivated.
The study presents a model for intention to use, confidence, trust and perseverance in attaining computer literacy competence with statistically significant standardised regression weights. In terms of affective responses of students during computer literacy training, a twodimensional model for computer literacy learning emotions is presented. Perceptions during professional development produced a model for faculty development towards socially transformative learning technology integration for open distance learning. The researcher also presents a people-technology interaction in teaching and learning model in the fifth paper. A distinction is made between reactionary interventions and pre-emptive unobtrusive seamless support, based on requirements identified through bottom-up feedback listening to latent requests of participants. Technology-enhanced learning integration should be legitimised through visible commitment from the university as institution. Lecturer training, innovative planning of time issues, acquisition of appropriate infrastructure, buying in from the institution and IT support services, and support of teacher-students are all essential for evolvement towards an e-mature organisation for the delivery of ODL to vast numbers of newly industrialised context clients.

Authors: Alastair Wilson; Sanna Rimpiläinen; Don Skinner; Claire Cassidy; Donald Christie; Norman
Coutts; Christine Sinclair
(Members of the Learners, Learning and Teaching Network, Project 1)
To cite this Article: Wilson, Alastair , Rimpiläinen, Sanna , Skinner, Don , Cassidy, Claire , Christie, Donald , Coutts,
Norman and Sinclair, Christine(2007) 'Using a Virtual Research Environment to support new models of collaborative and
participative research in Scottish education', Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 16: 3, 289 — 304
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14759390701614413

Drawing on research supported within the Scottish ‘Applied Educational Research Scheme’ this paper explores the use of the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) in developing ‘communities of enquiry’ in Scottish education and research. It focuses on the role of VREs in influencing collaborative working and educational research. The paper uses three vignettes to illustrate the ways in which VREs have the potential to transform the processes of collaborative enquiry and research in education, by offering new ways of conducting research and engaging various stakeholders (the policy, practice and research communities). The paper argues that, while initially the work conceptualised VREs essentially as tools to support communities of enquiry, it has become clearer during the analysis of emerging data from the project that VREs are developing as new environments in which participants engage and generate new forms of knowledge. They pose ethical dilemmas and challenge the status and analysis of data. The authors conclude that practitioner use of VREs needs to be recognised as a legitimate approach to collaborative working and that virtual dimensions to communities of enquiry require careful nurturing if they are to prove successful.