American Accounting Association
2010 Ohio Region Meeting

May 6-8, 2010
Columbus, Ohio

Registration Information • Hotel Information • Program
Effective Learning Strategies Poster Session

CPE Information

CPE#2:
Primer in Qualitative Research in Accounting

Full Description:
Many accounting professors have limited training in qualitative research. This session provides a “boot camp” with basic training in qualitative research design, data interpretation, and strategies for analysis. We will compare and contrast the differences between qualitative and quantitative research. Issues regarding ethics, validity, and transferability will also be discussed. Furthermore, the session will cover the “how to” of conducting interviews, making observations, performing document analysis, and developing grounded surveys. In addition, you will learn the basic analysis techniques such as high vs. low inference interpretation, theory-building, concept mapping, and displaying data. Lastly, we will discuss ways you can tell “the story” of your data, some of which may be new to you.

Format/Structure of the Workshop:
The workshop will be structured as follows:

• Begin with a comparison of qualitative and quantitative research.
• Discuss the design of a qualitative study – the major methods include interviewing, observations, document analysis, and developing grounded surveys.
  
• Design your own study.
• Practice data analysis – writing warrants and assertions, coding, interpretation, concept mapping, and displaying data.
• Learn how to tell “the story” of the data in a typical qualitative fashion.

Intended Audience
Graduate students and faculty members interested in conducting qualitative research, editors and reviewers that want to understand the fundamentals of sound qualitative research, and those interested in mixed methods research.

Learning Objective:

• Understand the history of qualitative in the positivist world and the basic differences between qualitative and quantitative research.
• Design a qualitative study that addresses validity and triangulation.
• Construct a data corpus that includes the basic qualitative methods of interviews, observation, document analysis, and grounded surveys.
• Understand ethics involved in qualitative research such as member checks.
• Understand the basics of analysis: data reduction, warrants and assertion, high inference versus low inference interpretation, grounded theory, and displaying data.
• Tell the story of your data.

CPE#4:
The Learner-Centered Approach and Holistic Education

Dee Fink presents a multi-stage taxonomy of significant learning in Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses [San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003] .

Fink’s approach to teaching and learning is holistic because it educates not only for cognition, but other aspects of personality and character that mark us as human being instead of primate. A student should not only be able to acquire new knowledge, but to have new skills, be able to apply the skills when appropriate and not to apply them if not appropriate, have new understandings, a greater awareness of the world, a better understanding of their own character and how they will continue on the path to future personal growth. In short, a college course designed according to Fink’s taxonomy will promote both critical and reflective thinking.

In this workshop, attendees will learn how to design a course to teach the whole student. Attention will be paid both to the basic learner-centered approach (with its heavy use of formative assessment) and the more advanced portions of the hierarchy dealing with critical thinking and holistic reflection.

This session introduces the basic elements of the learner-centered approach. It then proceeds to a more advanced coverage of the entire Fink taxonomy of significant learning. It focuses on creating learning experiences in the all six dimensions of learning. The detailed structure is as follows:

1. Brief review of learner-centered approach.
2. Presentation of the Fink taxonomy of
   significant learning
3. Principles in creating learning
   experiences that give students practice in doing.
4. Balance between content and
   application.
5. Integration - connecting ideas,
   people through think papers
6. Human dimension - learning about
   one's growth and development through reflection
7. Caring - the changes/values it
   is hoped students will adopt.
8. Learning how to learn - self
   assessment and futuring.
9. Introducing the reflective thinking notebook

Intended Audience:
Faculty who want to improve their teaching effectiveness, faculty new to the classroom, executives transitioning from the corporate world to the classroom, faculty who want to update their skills to understand student-centered learning, and doctoral students.

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