Class Participation in Accounting Courses: Relationship Among Preparation, Frequency, Comfort, and Learning

Abstract

Class discussion, especially case discussion, is a frequently used active learning strategy in business and accounting education. Prior research suggests that students' self-reported comfort with class discussion is positively related to students' self-reported learning. Pre- and post-course surveys concerning student perceptions and behavior about class discussion in an introductory management accounting course were gathered from sophomore business students at a large, private research university, and objective grade data were gathered from instructors of the course. Data were gathered from fourteen sections of the course taught by six instructors in two consecutive fall semesters. The analysis revealed interesting relationships among participation frequency, preparation, comfort with class discussion and objective learning measures. Consistent with Dallimore, Hertenstein & Platt (2006) results for graduate students, this study found that undergraduate student comfort participating in class discussion was positively and significantly related to familiarity with, level of preparation for, and frequency of participation in, class discussion. Further, the analysis showed that student comfort with participating in class discussion was also significantly and positively related to the perceived value of other students' comments for a student's own learning and the extent to which the course affected a student's own oral communication skill development. In addition, overall student learning was positively and significantly related to comfort with one's own participation in class discussion and beginning GPA. This finding is an important extension of literature concerning learning, as objective measures of learning were used rather than student self-reported perceptions about learning which have typically been used in prior research. The finding on the relationship between learning and comfort participating in the discussion suggests that instructors' efforts to create classroom environments that foster student comfort with class discussion - especially those efforts directed at increasing students' level of preparation, and at increasing the number of students participating and the frequency of their participation - should lead to increased student mastery of the course content.