P. Atrill and E. McLaney

Case study 1

Plymouth Business School:

Using open learning material to deliver management accounting

Originators: Peter Atrill and Eddie McLaney
Reproduced with permission from Atrill, P., McLaney, E. and Gibbs, G. (eds.) Course Design for Resource Based Learning - Accountancy Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff Development (1994)

Background

Some students seem to feel that mere attendance at lectures = effort + achievement

Until 1988 management accounting was taught at Plymouth Business School using the conventional lecture/tutorial approach. However, staff were sceptical of its effectiveness as a means of student learning; they also felt it encouraged a passive outlook on learning. The increase in student numbers and the deterioration of staff-student ratios in recent years added to the problems of the conventional approach: the lecture has necessarily become a more rigidly one-way process of communication and the size of tutorial groups has reduced the opportunity for individual attention or a useful dialogue with students.

Context

The management accounting module of the BA (Hons) Business Studies degree is in the second year of this full-time course. It is a compulsory module with a weighting of 20 credits under the CATS scheme and is studied by approximately 230 students. Other subjects on the second year of this course are taught using the conventional lecture/tutorial approach.

Aims

Mature students with family commitments particularly appreciate the opportunity for greater flexibility concerning where and when they study

Disaffection with the traditional approach led staff to seek an alternative. An open learning approach commended itself because it was felt that it would permit:

• a form of 'management by exception' so that those students who find the subject relatively easy can work almost without help, leaving those students who experience difficulties the lion's share of the lecturer's time;
• greater student choice concerning the time and location of their study and the speed at which they work;
• the opportunity for students to manage their studies and develop greater self-reliance.

It was also felt that, at first- and second-year undergraduate level, accounting lends itself to a structured approach that is particularly conducive to open learning.

Implementation

A team-based approach is used to develop and deliver the material

At first the new approach was driven by a small core of committed staff. However, increases in student numbers and the wish to extend this approach to other courses meant that acceptance among other members of the accounting group for open learning was desirable. In order to try to achieve this acceptance various policies were adopted. In particular:

• The results of the open learning approach were closely monitored and made available to all accounting staff for scrutiny.
• A small proportion of each lecturer's timetable was allocated to open learning duties to give staff direct experience of the methods and benefits.
• Staff have not been required to change their teaching/learning style on other courses, for which they have a major responsibility, to fit in with the open learning approach. Change arose through internal debate and through direct experience by staff of the benefits of the new approach.

These policies have proved successful and now all staff are involved to a greater or lesser extent in delivering the open learning approach and there is no longer any real debate within the accounting group concerning its desirability.

Virtually all the open learning materials used have been produced by accounting staff at Plymouth Business School. This policy was originally adopted because no suitable material could be found from an outside source. However, the set-up costs are very high and, as much of the development work has been carried out outside normal duties, the development of open learning materials has been slow. Once the material is written, there is a continuing commitment to updating and improving it; this too can be very time-consuming. As open learning material becomes more available from other sources it is likely that reliance on 'home-grown' material will diminish.

Support for changes in teaching / learning strategies from senior management in the faculty has been an important factor in ensuring success. The Dean of Plymouth Business School has encouraged innovation in such strategies over the years. This has created the right climate for staff to experiment.

The move from lecturer-centred to resource-centred learning has led to radical changes in staff duties and responsibilities. For staff new to open learning, help is provided in a number of ways. A lecturer's guide deals with the rationale for the approach and the advantages to be gained; it sets out a suggested scheme of work along with assessment problems and suggested solutions if required. To ensure that lecturers are clear about what is expected of them, a code of conduct for staff sets out the duties and responsibilities of staff involved in the courses delivered by open learning. Most important, however, is the adoption of a team-based approach to the development and delivery of material; support and encouragement can thus be provided by more experienced staff.

Resistance to an open learning approach has been experienced from a minority of students, particularly at the beginning of the course. Some felt uncomfortable with the idea of taking greater responsibility for their learning, or were anxious about how the new approach works in practice. Some also expressed the view that open learning is simply a means by which teaching staff can shed their responsibilities towards the students or that it was only introduced in order to make cost savings. Initial concerns of this kind have been taken seriously by staff and have been dealt with partially through a student induction process. However, the clear and continuing commitment of the staff towards the open learning approach has done much to ensure its acceptance. The guiding principle throughout has been that open learning is not primarily a response to large student numbers and therefore perhaps, by implication, inferior to the traditional approach. Rather, it has always been argued that this is a better method of learning, whatever the level of student intake. It is made clear that it provides more, rather than less, time for students who need it. Although it is possible to make savings by significantly reducing the amount of staff time devoted to courses delivered in this way, this has not been done. Instead, staff time has been deployed differently.

Student induction

At the beginning of the course students are given a guide that provides a rationale for the open learning approach and explains the way in which it works and the benefits that should ensue. These points are reinforced and expanded upon at a briefing session in the first week of the course. Staff are also available to deal with individual student concerns about the approach.

Resources

The main resource is open learning units written by staff

The open learning approach has developed gradually over the past six years. Currently the course is delivered using nine units, each of which deals with a particular part of the syllabus. The year is divided into nine study periods of three or four weeks' duration, during each of which the students are required to study one particular unit. Each unit contains what would have been covered, under the traditional approach, in the lectures and tutorials. The contents of each unit include a statement of learning objectives, an overview of the topic and identification of the key issues, narrative interspersed with worked examples, activities and self-assessment questions, references to essential readings and revision exercises at the end of the unit. A section of one unit is given in Appendix 1.

In addition to the units, students also receive a booklet of essential readings (as referenced in the units) and a student guide explaining the rationale for the open learning method, the advantages to be gained and hints on how to study using this method.

Operation

Lectures have not been abandoned entirely on the course. A scene-setting lecture is provided at the beginning of each study period. Although the recent inclusion of an overview of the topic at the beginning of each open learning unit has made this type of lecture less important, it appears that some students still like to receive this form of delivery. The lecture slot in the timetable also provides an opportunity for the lecturer to go through the main issues arising from the marking of assessment work relating to the preceding period.

'Drop-in' surgeries provide students with up to fifteen hours per week individual tuition if required. Surgery staff enjoy this opportunity for more personal contact with students than the conventional approach allows

Tutorials have been abandoned in favour of 'drop-in' surgeries [...]. These surgeries operate each afternoon from 2.00 to 5.00 p.m. Students can use these surgeries either as a quiet study period where they can work on the units while there is access to immediate help if needed, or as a location where a member of staff may answer queries that they have encountered while working on units elsewhere.

The introduction of the new approach has increased the class time available to an individual student's problems considerably, since he/she could attend all the sessions, giving a maximum of 15 hours staff-student contact. The afternoon surgeries are held in a room dedicated to this purpose [...] and are available to students from all second-year accounting modules delivered by open learning. A member of staff is on stand-by duty for each surgery in case demand is high and the lecturer on duty requires help. The afternoon surgery system is designed to provide the necessary support for approximately 400 students studying by open learning in the second year of their course (including approximately 230 BA Business Studies degree students). Experience to date indicates that staff can usually cope quite adequately with the flow of students through the surgeries.

Assessment

In-course assessment is frequent and varied

At the end of each study period the students are given an assessed piece of work on the contents of the relevant unit. The coursework can take various forms and will include multiple-choice tests, case studies, essays, computer-based assignments and computational exercises. Where the marks awarded indicate that a student is having difficulties the member of staff responsible for the course will interview the student and try to discover the reasons for this. The coursework is, therefore, seen as an important aspect of the student management system [...].

In order to encourage a serious attitude towards these assessments the results form the coursework assessment for the subject, which counts for 40% of the overall assessment for the subject under the Plymouth degree scheme. Marked test scripts are returned to students with a printed suggested solution, showing full workings. The tests are usually marked and returned by the following week.

Costs

The development of the open learning material has involved a large investment of staff time. It is estimated that 1,500 hours were required to produce the materials. In addition, there is a need to update the material on a regular basis. It is estimated that - approximately 50 hours per year will be spent on this task over the next five years. At the end of this period a major overhaul of the material is planned. The cost of producing the material was funded by the Open Learning Foundation, which now offers this material to member institutions for use on their business studies programmes. As mentioned earlier, staff time in operating the open learning approach is broadly consistent with time spent under the conventional approach. This is the result of a policy decision.

The open learning units and supplementary material are about 500 pages in length and are provided to the Plymouth Business School students free of charge. As student - numbers have risen over the years, the incremental cost has, so far, been confined to the cost of the printed material. Staff believe there would have to be a dramatic increase in student numbers before additional surgeries and scene-setting lectures are required.

Evaluation

The effectiveness of the open learning approach has been assessed in two ways:

• the acceptability to the students of this form of study;
• the performance of the students in assessed work.

The acceptability to the students was assessed through a questionnaire survey completed by the 1987/88 and 1989/90 cohorts. In both surveys, students were asked to respond to the statement: 'I prefer the approach to learning that was taken in this subject to the more traditional/ formal lecture style.' The responses are shown below.

Both surveys show an overwhelming majority of students favour the open learning approach in accounting. In both surveys students should have been capable of making the required comparison, since most courses that they had taken at Plymouth, including first-year accounting, were run on traditional lines.

The survey results suggest limits to the implementation of this RBL approach

Although the evidence shows strong support for accounting to be dealt with on an open learning basis, it was interesting to discover whether this indicated general support for open learning per se. The 1990 survey addressed this issue by asking the students to respond to the following statement: 'I feel that the second year would have been better if all subjects had been dealt with on the same self-study basis as Accounting for Decision-Making.' The responses are shown below.

The results, when analysed, revealed that those did not favour open learning for accounting (i.e. those who either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the previous statement) also did not favour the idea of all subjects being dealt with on an open learning basis. However, they also reveal that a number of students who support the idea of open learning in accounting would not support open learning being introduced across the board. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. A number of students, however, commented in the questionnaire that they prefer a variety of teaching/learning strategies rather than a single one. Some students commented that they felt that not all subjects lend themselves to this approach.

The effectiveness of open learning as measured by year-end examination performance was also investigated. A study was carried out which compared the students' results for the last year that the course had been approached in the traditional manner (1986/87) with the first year of the open learning approach (1987/88). The result of this comparison revealed a significant improvement in performance as measured by year-end exam performance. (No significant change in performance could be detected in the other subjects studied by students between these years.) However, these findings do not provide conclusive evidence of the superiority of open learning over traditional methods as other variables, such as the increased use of testing throughout the year, may well have influenced the examination results.

Qualitative evidence from external examiners' reports suggest that standards have been consistently higher since the introduction of open learning.

Developments

At present open learning units are the central feature of the course and are likely to remain so. However, CAL material is being introduced gradually to the course as it is being developed. (Accounting staff at the university are part of a consortium involved in the development of this material.)

Discussions are also taking place with library staff to ensure that library resources are more fully exploited. Proposals for much closer links with the library on a wide range of matters concerning the open learning approach, including the production and dissemination of material and the use of library accommodation and resources, are under consideration.

Conclusion

In setting up the open learning approach the main emphasis was on developing materials to a high standard; this was viewed as being the most important factor in determining the success of the course. However, experience over time suggests that the crucial factor in the success of this approach appears to be the clear and unequivocal commitment to open learning by the staff involved. Their persistence and enthusiasm in dealing with problems that have arisen have been of vital importance in overcoming resistance to the new approach and in establishing its validity.

The open learning approach at Plymouth now seems to be entering a new phase of development that has to be managed carefully. Staff recognise that any future development is likely to involve greater reliance on resource-based material produced by others; there is a concern that this lack of 'ownership' of the material may create problems in delivery. Library staff are now being encouraged to participate in the further development of this approach so as to encourage greater use of library resources. However, the nature and extent of this participation has not yet been clarified.

Appendix 1: Case 1

Extract from an open learning unit in management accounting used by BA (Hons) Business Studies students at Plymouth Business school.