A response to Lo Mun Ling's comments on the paper "Using Learning Study to improve the teaching and learning of accounting in a school in Brunei Darussalam

Citation

anak Andrew, V. (2012), "A response to Lo Mun Ling's comments on the paper "Using Learning Study to improve the teaching and learning of accounting in a school in Brunei Darussalam", International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Vol. 1 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlls.2012.57901baa.003

A response to Lo Mun Ling's comments on the paper "Using Learning Study to improve the teaching and learning of accounting in a school in Brunei Darussalam"

A response to Lo Mun Ling's comments on the paper "Using Learning Study to improve the teaching and learning of accounting in a school in Brunei Darussalam"

Article Type: Discussion From: International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Volume 1, Issue 2.

First, I wish to thank Mun Ling for her comments on the learning study conducted by the Bruneian Accounting teachers on cash budget.

Mun Ling's interpretation of what might have caused learning to improve over the three cycles is insightful. Her comment that “because the only major changes over the three lessons were in the PowerPoint presentation, these changes must account for much of the improvement in student learning outcomes”. This is true but what caused the teachers to change the way the lesson was presented? My argument is that the teachers were able to use PowerPoint to good effect because they had a clearer understanding of the object of learning by the second cycle. This understanding was demonstrated in the way the lesson was structured for the learners to experience. The teachers understood the importance of helping learners to discern two kinds of relationships: first, the 20 per cent cash and 80 per cent credit for each month and second, the 70 per cent credit paid after the first month and 30 per cent credit paid after the second month. These two relationships were revealed systematically in the PowerPoint presentation in the second and third cycles. But have the teachers done enough? About 30 per cent of learners in the third cycle have not discerned the critical aspects. This is where Mun Ling's comment is quite instructive and pertinent. The teachers could have used the patterns of variation more explicitly. I agree with her analysis that “one way to highlight part-whole relationships may be to keep a component part constant and vary the whole by progressively including other component parts to make up the whole”.

Despite the increase in student understanding of the accounting concepts, I do not think the third cycle is the best version. In my paper (see p. 30), I argued that the meaning of “bad debts as a % of total monthly sales” was ambiguous. This could be interpreted in different ways. One interpretation is that bad debts is calculated out of total cash and credit sales. This interpretation is problematic because bad debts occur only when people do not pay up. If people pay cash, they are not in bad debt. Despite this, the specification of bad debt as a percentage of total monthly sales is ambiguous. Hence combining cash and credit sales and then taking a proportion of this as bad debts does not make much sense. In the third cycle, the bad debts were taken off at the outset. By doing this, do we not misrepresent the process? The students may see how to do a calculation but misunderstand the notion of provision for bad debts.

On behalf of the teachers who participated in the learning study, I would like to express our sincere thanks for the opportunity to be part of this professional dialogue. I would welcome comments from teachers and researchers on how they would make provisions for bad debts in this particular context.

Vincent anak AndrewPusat Tingkatan Enam Tutong, Brunei Darussalam