The research project proceeds in various steps:

(1) In a first step 500 expert teachers, teacher trainees and students are interviewed to gain a more solid insight into the thinking of (prospective) teachers. These analyses prove the special position of bookkeeping in the curricula of business schools. Furthermore it becomes obvious that there is a close connection between the views on teaching and learning and the reported actual teaching.

(2) In a second step 20 expert teachers were picked and interrogated more thorougly in a construct interview on the topic. The results of the construct interviews showed that only a small number of the interviewees possess an understanding of teaching and learning which is constructive or focussed on depth. Consequently on the average this can be called rather content and surface-oriented. The teachers see themselves more as faciliators of knowledge. The interpretations of the role of the teacher as model for learning or as advisor in a learning process are less important. Study contents are therefore regarded as closes systems (of knowledge).

(3) Furthermore teaching experts were asked to give information about how they proceed in planning their lessons as well as their actual teaching (reported lesson practise). As expected didactic models are rather unimportant in the planning of lessons. The interviewees mostly use material that they produced themselves or that they have frequently used in the past and sometimes they revise it. The reports about their actual teaching show that the majority of teachers prefer teacher-oriented methods. As arguments to justify this approach the necessity of securing the learning success and the factor time were emphasized. Additionally the teachers suspect that students are not able to deal with the opening of teaching towards a more learner-oriented methods.

(4) To gain detailed insights in the classroom three teachers will be observed exemplarily over the course of a whole teaching unit. The video tapes of the lessons are scheduled for November and December 2006. We took three different criteria into account: (a) organisation of the teaching and learning activities, (b) quality of teacher-student interactions, and (c) students’ perception of learning situations. Important were self-reported emotional, motivational and cognitive state variables of learners that were registered in seven-minute intervals by a mobile mini-computer (cf. Sembill 2003; Sembill, Wolf, Wuttke, & Schumacher 2002). The basic idea is to ask the learners themselves rather than external observers what they are thinking and feeling during the learning processes.

Moreover students of the videotaped teachers were questioned about their perception of the teaching quality. It became obvious that especially the experienced methodological competence of the teacher determines the perception of teaching quality. Of further importance are how clear, structured and interesting the lesson is as well as the student-teacher relationship. Additionally there is a weak negative relationship between the proficiency level of the students (in grades) and the perception of the teacher. Further analyses need to focus on the relationship between the beliefs of teachers and the perception of the teaching from the perspective of the students.

Finally focusing on three exemplary teachers with the help of observations in the classroom (video-taped lessons) it will be examined to which degreee there is a relationship between subjective theories, teaching and the effect achieved in the teaching process (success in learning and perception of teaching quality). The first results indicate that the “typical” teaching of accounting is primarily teacher-oriented. According to the interviewees time constraints are one of the drawbacks for a more open way of teaching. Furthermore it became obvious that the learners are altogether satisfied with the conventional way of teaching bookkeeping. The satisfaction of the learners is influenced not only by factors like structure and interestingness of the lesson but also by the quality of the teacher-learner relationship.

References:

Groeben, N., Wahl, D., Schlee, J., & Scheele, B. (1988): Das Forschungsprogramm Subjektive Theorien. Eine Einführung in die Psychologie des reflexiven Subjekts. Tübingen: Francke.

Sembill, D. (2003): Results of Self Organized Learning in Vocational Education. In: Achtenhagen et al. (Eds.): Milestones of Vocational Education and Training. Bielefeld: Bertelsmann, 81-106.

Sembill, D., Wolf, K. D., Wuttke, E., & Schumacher, L. (2002): Self-Organized Learning in Vocational Education – Foundation, Implementation, and Evaluation. In: Beck, K. (Ed.): Teaching-Learning Processes in Vocational Education. Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 267-295.