Activating accounting students’ decision-making skills through a reflective self-assessment workshop on learning styles

Abstract

Given the impact of technological advances on the work environment of accountants, stakeholders are increasingly emphasising that accounting education should develop the decision-making skills of students. While thinking critically, globally and intuitively comes naturally to some accounting students, many others prefer sensing and sequential learning styles (ways of thinking and processing information). Students need to be aware of their dominant learning styles to enable self-regulation and ensure that they develop the necessary decision-making skills to be successful in diverse subjects, topics and types of assessments, as well as in their future careers. This action research study documents the development and implementation of a reflective self-assessment workshop on learning styles for accounting students in South Africa. The workshop, which was informed by the theory of metacognition and self-regulated learning, increased students’ self-awareness regarding their dominant learning styles (the majority favoured a sequential learning style over a global one) and facilitated a metacognitive process whereby students could identify learning strategy deficiencies and plan remedial actions. Feedback revealed that students felt more prepared for their studies after the workshop. The guidelines for adaptive strategies per learning style developed during this study could also help accounting students strengthen their decision-making skills.