Abstract
This study investigates the implementation of the methodology, Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) (Northcutt & McCoy, 2004) during the COVID-19 pandemic, to understand how non-major accounting students learn Accounting 101 in a threshold concepts-inspired tutorial programme. Even though IQA is a predominantly qualitative method, it incorporates quantitative data with qualitative data systematically. These data collection and data analysis procedures are a means of aiding participants in a focus group to describe their experiences with a phenomenon, to name these experiences and to then describe the relationships between these named experiences. The objective of the IQA methodology is to create a picture, a Systems Influence Diagram (SID), representative of the mind map of the focus group participants, with regard to the phenomenon outlined in the issue statements. A summary of theoretical codes used to capture the relationships between affinities named, an Inter Relationship Diagram (IRD), is used to draw the SID. IQA requires the researcher to document each step of the research process, whilst acting as a facilitator by teaching the participants the IQA process on how to generate and analyse the data that they have generated, thereby minimising the researcher influence. This study provides qualitative research conducted in the fields of education and accounting, with a qualitative methodological approach, being Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA).
Highlights
Accounting 101 classrooms at universities in South Africa typically consist of large class numbers with both major and non-major accounting students
The participants analysed the relationships amongst the affinities using an Affinity Relationship Table (ART)
The final product was a visual representation of each affinity pair relationship that had emerged, a Systems Influence Diagram (SID)
Summary
Accounting 101 classrooms at universities in South Africa typically consist of large class numbers with both major and non-major accounting students. The challenge inherent in this mixed classroom was that as resources were limited, discipline experts were unable to provide non-major accounting students who do not want to become chartered accountants or those students who possessed an aversion to the discipline, with a design relevant to their specifications. This challenge necessitated a deeper understanding of non-major accounting students’ learning, as well as those students who possessed an aversion to the discipline, as their performance may contribute to the failure rate This further necessitated the utilisation of possible innovative methods in order to assist students who do not wish to specialise in accounting in a South African context. The lacuna that this study aspired to fill will be using non-major accounting students with Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) and the Threshold Concepts Theory that emerged in 2003
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