Mind(ing) the Gap:  An evaluation of face-to-face and e-strategies to support Accounting students in their course content

Presenter

Abstract

The field of Accounting Sciences is broad, complex and multidimensional. With several quality and comprehensive educational programs being offered across South Africa to support aspiring accounting students; very few institutions provide free supplementary support, herein making tuition support inaccessible to underprivileged and (academically) underprepared students.

At the University of South Africa, an institutional intervention of a regionally-based weekly tutorial class support system (comprising of 15 hours of tutoring) is offered to support students with quality access and preparation to assessment tasks free of charge. However, in observation to classroom learning and given the complexities of the skills associated with the different areas of Accounting Sciences; the following realities emerged:

• • Accounting books are condensed, and requires intensive intervention to steer learner concentration, and to teach learners a sense of logic and structured reasoning in the field.

  • Study skills, if mediated, requires critical reasoning to evaluate key facts and assumptions central to the course content, and that

  • students, especially those with poor(er) school backgrounds, need additional and more structured support to acquire the relevant quantitative literacies suitable to support their learning from first to third year, and beyond.

This study will critically reflect on strategies employed by a tutor in a tutorial class setting at a regional tutorial programme of an open and distance learning regional site.

Presentation