The Reading, Interpretation And Usage Of Scientific Articles In Undergraduate Accounting Education

Abstract

According to Gagné (1985, p. 263) most scientific instruction is directed at one of three general goals: acquiring organised knowledge of a particular branch of science, improving the ability to solve problems in a specific domain of science, and improving general reasoning skills. In a Problem Based Learning (PBL) environment these goals generally hold as well. To reach these goals PBL uses a somewhat different approach than the traditional setting, in which scientific instruction mainly consists of lectures by an instructor. In the PBL-setting students take learning initiatives themselves, they must be curious and interested constantly, and they should try to put a problem in several different contexts (Moust, Bouhuijs & Schmidt, 1989, pp. 11). The role of the instructor, or tutor in PBL, is mainly found in keeping track of the process, in routing the students through the study materials, and in guaranteeing the integration of different scientific fields (Moust, Bouhuijs & Schmidt, 1989, pp. 11–12). Different from the ‘traditional’ setting, PBL requires students to thoroughly prepare before class session, necessary to effectuate the initiatives expected from them.

We thank Willem Buijink, Wim Gijselaers, Ted Mock, Ludo Thijssen and Eddy Vaassen for their constructive comments on the research instrument and earlier versions of the paper. We would like to thank the EDINEB particpants attending our session for the fruitful discussion.