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Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (2011) 2181–2186

WCES-2011

Vocational higher school students’ conceptual structures of accounting Mustafa Aya *

a

Selcuk Universty, Cihanbeyli MYO, Department of Accounting, 42850, Cihanbeyli, Konya, Turkey.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate vocational higher school students’ conceptual structures of accounting. Data was collected from 96 students using a free word association test. The results of this research revealed the conceptual structures of accounting of the participant students with various dimensions. Eight different categories were formed with the participant students’ response words about accounting. These categories were: tools used in accounting, the accounting profession and education, accounting results, accounts, the accounting environment, mathematical operations, the scientific quality of accounting and the professional ethics of accounting. The category with the highest frequency was tools used in accounting whereas the category with the lowest frequency was professional ethics of accounting. It was observed when the categories formed were analyzed that, accounting students’ conceptual structures of accounting were on various dimensions and at an adequate level. These results were compared with the related literature and recommendations were developed. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Keywords:Vocational Higher School Students’, conceptual structures, accounting education, word association test.

1. Introduction The basis of these studies is the distinction between the accounting applications and the accounting education (Steadman and Gren, 1995). Educational institutions cannot accommodate changes as fast and easily as the markets, because they cannot obtain information from the market powers as fast as businesses (Albrecht and Sack, 2000). The slow change in accounting education despite the rapid change in the business environment creates the deficit (BayazÕtlÕ and Çelik, 2004). The rapid change of our world increases the deficit between the application and education gradually (Mathews, 2001; Mulford and Weirich, 1992; Albrecht, 2002). The accommodation of the accounting instructors to the new developments besides accounting employees can be a solution to the increase in this deficit (Pethley and Fremgen, 1999). Many studies have been carried out to solve this deficit problem in accounting education (Bedford and Shankir, 1987; Pincus, 1990; Sundem, Williams and Chironna, 1990; Mathews, 2001; Mulford and Weirich, 1992; Albrecht, 2002). Accounting trade bodies, accounting employees, accounting companies and universities can be listed as the ones who are directly affected from the rupture between the accounting applications and the accounting education. The resistance of these related bodies to the change besides their expectations from accounting education enhances the dimensions and the deadlock of the problem (BeyazÕtlÕ and Çelik, 2004).

* Mustafa Ay. Tel.: +90-332-6734089; fax: +90-332-6734090. E-mail address: [email protected].

1877–0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.076

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Another problem besides the “accounting deficit” is about learning. There are many studies about learning in the literature. Marton and Saljo (1976) analyzed higher education students’ perspectives on learning. This research formed the basis of Sharma’s (1997) research which analyzed the learning perceptions of students for the first time. Lucas and Meyer (2004) analyzed how accounting educators can provide awareness and support to develop students’ perceptions. Kern (2002) examined the effects of freshmen in the accounting department developing a conceptual model on their problem-solving skills. Ballantine, Duff and Larres (2008), Byrne and Willis (2008), Leveson (2004) and Elias (2005) examined the learning approaches of accounting students and accounting employees in their research. Hackner and Tschudi, (1994), Leauby and Brazina (1998), Chen and Ching (2003), Maas and Leauby (2005), Simon (2007) did scientific studies on the use of concept maps in accounting education. Jackling (2005) analyzed the accounting approaches, perceptions of their courses and examination results of sophomores in the accounting department of a university in Australia using qualitative data. Problems mentioned above about accounting education, reveal the fact that research should be carried out about the students’ conceptual structures. Additionally, there is a need for suitable teaching strategies to eliminate the alternative concepts of students and to provide meaningful learning. To design these teaching strategies, an effective knowledge of the students’ conceptual structures is needed. It is expected that, the findings of this study be useful for students, instructors and curriculum designers. 2. Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate vocational higher school students’ conceptual structures of accounting using a free word association test. This study focuses on the following question: How do vocational higher school students conceptualize the term accounting? 3. Methodology 3.1. Participants The participants of this research are 96 senior year students chosen randomly from two separate vocational higher schools in Konya, Turkey. The test was applied to students in a classroom environment during the spring semester of the academic year 2009/10. The average age of the students was 19.8 years (range 18–25). The majority of the students were female (61%). However, the focus of this study is not on gender differences. 3.2. Data collection The participant students were asked to complete a free word association task. In the task, the term “accounting” was presented to them as a stimulus word as follows: Accounting: ………………………… Accounting: ………………………… Accounting: ………………………… Accounting: ………………………… Accounting: ………………………… The stimulus word was written five times, one under the other, to prevent the risk of chain answering. This is because if the students do not return to the stimulus word after they write the response word, that response word may become the stimulus word for the next response word and this may harm the purpose of the test. The students were asked to write down the first five words that came to mind when hearing or reading the term ‘‘accounting”. The word association test is a data collection technique that is used to analyze the conceptual structure of an individual or a group of people about a certain subject. The technique is based on the assumption that giving a stimulus word and asking the respondents to freely associate what ideas come to their mind gives relatively

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unrestricted access to mental representations of the stimulus term (Bahar, Johnstone and Sutcliffe, 1999; Hovardas and Korfiatis, 2006; Sato and James, 1999). In the simplest form of this technique, a word or a series of words are presented to participants written or orally. The participants are asked to give whatever comes to their minds as response words in association with the stimulus word. After the content is analyzed and the frequency of response words is calculated, it is possible to make conclusions on the associative meanings of the stimulus word and so to define the conceptual structures of the participants. This kind of application of the free word association task which reveals the associative meanings of various concepts has been used in various studies (Daskolia, Flogaitis, and Papageorgiou, 2006; Sato and James, 1999; Torkar and Bajd, 2006; Cardak, 2009; Dikmenli, 2010). 3.3 Data analysis Data collected from the word association test was analyzed. Response words with the same meanings were categorized together under the heading of the response word with the highest frequency. Response words that were used three or less time and the irrelevant words that were not associated with the other words were excluded. The words were categorized using a criterion of semantic relationship and the frequency of the words in each category was calculated. It has been proved in many other researches that this type of data analysis gives reliable results (Daskolia, Flogaitis, and Papageorgiou, 2006; Sato and James, 1999; Torkar and Bajd, 2006; Dikmenli, 2010). 4. Results and discussion Following the data analysis, response words were grouped under eight categories. These categories and the response words under each category are demonstrated in Table 1. Table 1 represents the categories and the associations of accounting. According to the results, the dominant category that is associated with accounting is: the tools used in accounting (73 response words). The students used the response words, money and ledgers with a high frequency in this category. Moreover, response words computer programmes and invoice take place in this category. The concept of accounting is the science and art of recording, classifying, summarizing, reporting and analyzing the transactions in a form expressed with money and based on information and documents. (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Lerner, 2004; Weygandt, Kieso and Kimmel, 2008). Considering this definition, it is observed that, students associate the recording of documents used in accounting in the book of accounts with a high frequency in this category. One of the basic accounting principles is monetary unit assumption (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Brock, Herrington, and Ramey, 2006). Basic accounting principles states that measurements in accounting systems must be done in monetary units (Dobija, 2003). In this context, the frequency of money being higher than the other tools is not that significant in terms of learning. In the second category of response words, it is revealed that participant students associate accounting with the accounting profession and accounting education. There are two concepts in this category, these are: profession and education. The two concepts are in the same category because; some of the response words (difficult and complicated) of students are related to both concepts. It is observed in this category that, most of the participants focus on the profession, course, independent accountant, complicated, certified public accountant, department and job training words. Profession is the word with the highest frequency in this category. The third category of the response words is formed with the words that are associated with the results that appear at the summarizing and reporting (CemalcÕlar, Benligiray and Sürmeli, 2006; Akdo÷an and Sevilengül, 2007) stages which are indicated in the definition of accounting. In this category, most of the participants focus on the balance sheet, tax, trial balance, inventory, profit and loss concepts. In this category students generally associate the concept of accounting with the tables and results produced by accounting. That the balance sheet, which is one of the most important financial charts of accounting, has a high frequency is a sample of meaningful learning. It can be claimed about this category that, most of the response words are related with year-end procedures and the results of these procedures.

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In the fourth category of the response words, words related with accounts are associated with accounting. It is observed in this category that, students focus on the accounts, uniform chart of accounts and value added tax. In this category, the response word accounts have the highest frequency among the response words. In the fifth category of response words, words related with the accounting environment are associated with accounting. In this category, it is observed that students focus on the companies, accounting office, government and customer response words. The frequency of the response words companies and accounting office are higher than the others. In the sixth category of response words, mathematical operations are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on the operation, mathematics and numbers response words. The frequency of the response word operation is higher than the other response words, considering the cumulative frequency. In the seventh category of response words, words related to the scientific quality of accounting are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on the recording, logic and analysis. The recording response word has the highest frequency in this category. Considering the scientific quality of accounting, responses given by the students are good examples of meaningful learning. In the eighth and last category of response words, words related with ethics in accounting are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on: tax evasion, deception, order and forgery response words. In this category, tax evasion is the word with the highest frequency. Table 1. Associations about the term accounting

Categories 1

Tools used in accounting

2

Accounting profession and education

3

Accounting results

4

Accounts

5

Accounting environment

6

Mathematical operations

7

Scientific quality of accounting

Associations included in categories and their frequencies "money" (37) "ledgers" (22) “computer programmes" (9) "invoice" (5) "profession" (20) "course" (10) "difficult" (8) "independent accountant" (7) "examination" (6) "complicated" (6) "job training" (5) "certified public accountant" (4) "department" (4) "balance sheet" (18) "tax" (11) "trial balance" (9) "inventory" (7) "profit" (6) "loss" (6) "accounts" (41) "uniform chart of accounts" (8) "value added tax" (5) "companies" (12) "accounting office" (9) "government" (5) "customer" (4) "operation" (16) “math" (8) “numbers" (5) "recording" (11)

Total frequency of association in this category 73

70

57

54

30

29

21

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8

Ethics in accounting

"logic" (6) "analysis" (4) "tax evasion" (6) "deception" (5) "order" (4) "forgery" (4)

19

5. Conclusions and implications The findings, of this research, present vocational higher school students’ conceptual structures of accounting with various dimensions. It is observed that, vocational higher school students’ conceptual structures of accounting are at a satisfactory level. In the research, the category with the highest frequency is: tools used in accounting. Many examples of meaningful learning can be found throughout the research when the correlations between the concepts are examined. For instance, accounting-accounts, accounting-balance sheet, accountingrecording, accounting-ledgers are associations that reflect meaningful learning. It is not possible to assert that, correlations throughout the research completely reveal the conceptual structure of accounting. The computer programmes response word exists in the category of tools used in accounting. However, students could not associate the computer wtih accounting, although computers are essential for accountants (Abraham, Loughrey and Whalen, 1987; Dillon and Kruck, 2008). Account code and auxiliary account (Örten and KarapÕnar, 2007) can be listed as possible response words that were not associated with accounting in the account category. It is observed that, principles like public interest, honesty, objectivity and independency among the professional behaviour code principles (Brown, Stocks and Wilder, 2007) adopted by the AICPA do not take place in the professional ethics category. Furthermore, classifying, summarizing and reporting concepts which take place in the scientific definitions of accounting (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Brock, Herrington, and Ramey, 2006) were not associated with accounting in the scientific quality of accounting category. It is vital for the accounting education that, these subjects that students are not competent enough be determined and that these subjects are concentrated on. One of the most important factors that affect learning is the student’s existing knowledge or conceptual structure. Opinions that do not coincide with scientific facts may exist in this conceptual structure. Therefore, students’ existing conceptual structures must be revealed before or during education and education should be planned accordingly. This way, students can be enabled to make correct connections between their existing old concepts and the new concepts they come across and the learning can be carried up to a higher level. References Abraham, E., Loughrey, C. and Whalen, H. (1987) Computerized practice set in introductory financal accounting, Accounting Education, 2(1), pp. 1-12. Accounting Education Change Commission Position Statement No. 1 Objectives of Education for Accountants, Retrieved 12 August 2010 from: http://aaahq.org/aecc/PositionsandIssues/pos1.htm. Akdo÷an, N. and Sevilengül, O. (2007) Tek düzen muhasebe sistemi uygulamasÕ (Application of union chart accounting system). (Ankara: Gazi YayÕnevi). Albrecht, W. S. (2002) Accounting education on the edge, Bized, March/April, pp. 40-45. Albrecht, W. S. and Sack, R.J. (2000) Accounting Education: Charting the Course Through a Perilous Future, Accounting Education Series, Volume No. 16 . Retrived 9 August 2010 from: http://aaahq.org/pubs/AESv16/toc.htm . Atabey, N. A., Parlakkaya, R. and Alagöz, A. (2009) Genel muhasebe dönem sonu iúlemleri (Accounting end of period procedures), (Turkey: Atlas Kitabevi). Bahar, M. Johnstone A.H. and Sutcliffe R.G. (1999) Investigation of students’ cognitive structure in elementary genetics through word association tests, Journal of Biological Education, No: 33, pp. 134-141. Ballantine, J. A., Duff, A. and Larres, P. M. (2008) Accounting and business students’ approaches to learning: A longitudinal study, Journal of Accounting Education, No: 26, pp. 188-201. BayazÕtlÕ, E. and Çelik O. (2004) Muhasebe e÷itiminin kalitesinin arttÕUÕlmasÕnda ilk adÕm: yüksekö÷retim kurumlarÕnda muhasebe e÷itiminin etkinli÷inin analizi (First step at raising the quality of accounting education: Analysis of efficiency of accouting education at higher education), XXIII. Türkiye Muhasebe E÷itimi Sempozyumu, pp. 63-97. Bedford, N. M. and Shankir, W. G. (1987) Reorienting accounting education, Journal of Accountancy, August pp. 84- 91.

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