Search results
1 – 10 of over 6000This study aims to address the possibility of integrating some elements of the “radical constructivist” approach to management accounting teaching. It answers the following two…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address the possibility of integrating some elements of the “radical constructivist” approach to management accounting teaching. It answers the following two questions: to what extent should management accounting educators construct a “radical constructivist” foundation to guide active learning? Then, in which ways can management accounting educators use qualitative methods to facilitate “radical constructivist” education?
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a teaching cycle that implements innovative learning elements, e.g. learning from ordinary people, designed following the principles of “radical constructivism”, to engage students with “externalities” at the centre of their knowledge construction. It adopts an ethnographic approach comprising interviews and participant observation for the data collection, followed by the application of qualitative content and narrative analysis of the data.
Findings
The study findings and reflections illustrate that the majority of students respond positively to radical constructivist learning if the educators can develop an innovative problem-solving and authentic environment that is close to their real lives. The radical constructivist teaching cycle discussed in this study has challenged the mindsets of the management accounting students as it altered the traditional objectivist academic learning approaches that students were familiar with. Its use of qualitative methods facilitated active learning. Student feedback was sought as part of the qualitative design, which provided a constructive mechanism for the students and educators to learn and unlearn from their mistakes. This process enriched the understanding of learners (students) and educators of successful engagement in radical constructivist management accounting education and provides a base upon which to design future teaching cycles.
Originality/value
The paper provides proof of the ability of accounting educators, as change agents, to apply radical constructivist epistemology combined with multiple qualitative research methods by creating new constructive learning structures and cultures associated with innovative deep-learning tasks in management accounting education.
Details
Keywords
Robin Bell and Peng Liu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived challenges that Chinese vocational college educators face in developing and delivering constructivist active and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived challenges that Chinese vocational college educators face in developing and delivering constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative data were collected from 24 focus groups of educators who had been tasked with embedding constructivist entrepreneurship education into their teaching and curriculum, at four different vocational colleges situated in four different provinces in China. The data were coded and analysed for emerging themes using a process of bottom-up thematic analysis.
Findings
A range of concerns were identified from the focus groups and these could be divided into five main challenges, which were the role of the educator in the constructivist learning process and their ability to control the process; the educators perceived student reaction to the process and their engagement with it; the time and technology required to deliver the process; the link between the learning and industry; and the educators’ perception of the requirements to meet internal expectations.
Research limitations/implications
This research explores the educators’ perceptions of the challenges they face in developing and delivering active and experiential constructivist entrepreneurship education. Whilst these concerns may impact how the educators’ approach the task, these concerns are only perceived, as the educators’ have not yet implemented the introduction of constructivist entrepreneurship education when other challenges may become evident.
Originality/value
Encouragement by the Chinese Government to develop and deliver constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education has resulted in a number of tensions and challenges. Entrepreneurship education in China is still relatively young and under researched and this research contributes to the literature by exploring the challenges that educators face in developing and delivering constructivist entrepreneurship education in Chinese vocational colleges.
Details
Keywords
Qualitative research suffers from “contestation” and a lack of “boilerplate” problems to assessing and presenting qualitative data, which have hampered its development and the…
Abstract
Purpose
Qualitative research suffers from “contestation” and a lack of “boilerplate” problems to assessing and presenting qualitative data, which have hampered its development and the broader acceptance of qualitative research. This paper aims to address this gap by marrying the constructivist methodology and RQDA, a relatively new open-source computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS)-based R extension and demonstrate how the software can increase the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper highlights the constructivist approach as an important paradigm in qualitative research and demonstrates how it can be operationalized and enhanced using RQDA. It provides a technical and methodological review of RQDA, along with its main strengths and weaknesses, in relation with two popular CAQDAS tools, ATLAS.ti and NVivo. Using samples of customer-generated e-complaints and e-praises in the electronics/computer sector, this paper demonstrates the development of a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric.
Findings
This study offers step-by-step instructions for installing and using RQDA for data coding, aggregation, plotting and theory building. It emphasizes the importance of techniques for sharing coding outputs among researchers and journal gatekeepers to better disseminate and share research findings. It also describes the authors’ use of RQDA in classrooms of undergraduates and graduate students.
Research limitations/implications
This paper addresses the “contestation” and “boilerplate” gaps, offering practical, step-by-step instructions to operationalize and enhance the constructivist approach using the RQDA-based approach. This opens new opportunities for existing R users to “cross over” to analyzing textual data as well as for computer-savvy scholars, analysts and research students in academia and industry who wish to transition to CAQDAS-based qualitative research because RQDA is free and can leverage the strengths of the R computing platform.
Originality/value
This study offers the first published review and demonstration of the RQDA-based constructivist methodology that provide the processes needed to enhance the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research. It demonstrates the systematic development of a data structure and a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric using RQDA.
Details
Keywords
This paper offers a constructivist theory of governance. It begins by challenging rational choice and institutionalist accounts for neglecting meanings. If we are to take meanings…
Abstract
This paper offers a constructivist theory of governance. It begins by challenging rational choice and institutionalist accounts for neglecting meanings. If we are to take meanings seriously, we need to allow for the constructed nature of governance − governance depends on concepts that are themselves in part products of wider webs of belief. The rest of the paper argues, first, that constructivism is compatible with various forms of realism, and, second, that constructivism is strengthened by recognition of situated agency.
Anthony Cerqua, Clermont Gauthier and Martial Dembélé
More than ever before, globalization has linked the socioeconomic development of nations to the performance of their educational systems. One of the consequences of this new focus…
Abstract
More than ever before, globalization has linked the socioeconomic development of nations to the performance of their educational systems. One of the consequences of this new focus on improving the quality of teachers is the acknowledgment of the importance of engaging more directly with what is at the center of action, that is, pedagogy (Alexander, 2008). In this perspective, we conduct research aimed at describing, analyzing, and establishing a critical portrait of the scientific bases of the pedagogical choices made by three major international organizations (OECD, UNESCO, and World Bank) with respect to teacher education and development. In terms of methodology, we conducted a fine-grained analysis of the documents produced in the framework of TALIS and semi-structured individuals interviews with five staff members of OECD. The idea of pedagogical pluralism constitutes a rhetorical artefact through which constructivist teaching approaches are favored.
Details
Keywords
David S. Bright, Arran Caza, Elizabeth Fisher Turesky, Roger Putzel, Eric Nelson and Ray Luechtefeld
New educators may feel overwhelmed by the options available for engaging students through classroom participation. However, it may be helpful to recognize that participatory…
Abstract
New educators may feel overwhelmed by the options available for engaging students through classroom participation. However, it may be helpful to recognize that participatory pedagogical systems often have constructivist roots. Adopting a constructivist perspective, our paper considers three meta-practices that encourage student participation: designing activities, leading others, and assessing peers. We explored the consequences of these meta-practices for important student outcomes, including content knowledge, engagement, self-efficacy, sense of community, and self-awareness. We found that different meta-practices were associated with different combinations of outcomes. This discovery demonstrates the benefit of studying meta- practices so as to reveal the nuanced effects that may arise from pedagogical choices. In addition, an understanding of meta-practices can help leadership educators to be more discerning and intentional in their course designs.
Tomaz Schara and Richard Common
– The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the constructivist-grounded theory in elite interviews, the methodology used for this research.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the constructivist-grounded theory in elite interviews, the methodology used for this research.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is about the challenges of the EU rail industry integration in the context of EU integration as seen and told by the involved actors. In particular, the integration process requires leadership in the multi-level governance context of the EU and in the transition from state monopolies to businesses providing services on the integrated market. This provides a potential source of theoretically and practically relevant research questions; and second rigorous grounded research methodologies will bring insight that transcends the currently accepted formal and public statements about the phenomena. The work is situated within social constructivist ontology, enacted through a rigorous grounded theory approach to understanding the current challenges of the industry and seeking more effective developments for the future.
Findings
Findings place the concepts of leadership and debt into a relationship that could offer profound understanding of certain social relations and contribute to the growth of theory and practice. These findings are also elaborated in this paper as reflections on the methodological process.
Research limitations/implications
Contribution to theory and practice supports the relevance and rigor of “constructivist-grounded theory in elite interviews” as a methodological approach.
Practical implications
In particular, it supports qualitative research in complex political environments, such as the multi-level governance structures of the EU.
Social implications
A clearer understanding of leadership within such dynamic contexts can make a substantial contribution to better policy-making in the EU and better outcomes for its citizens.
Originality/value
Further analysis and research of the concepts of leadership and debt and their relationship could offer profound understanding of certain social relations and contribute to the growth of theory and practice.
Details
Keywords
Using a life story approach, I explore Kathy Charmaz's research journey marked by her profound motivation to utilize the humanizing potential of human sciences research as she…
Abstract
Using a life story approach, I explore Kathy Charmaz's research journey marked by her profound motivation to utilize the humanizing potential of human sciences research as she developed the constructivist version of grounded theory (CGT). The experiential and social divides that she observed since her own childhood between the ill person and medical professionals or other stakeholders remained etched in her consciousness. They generated a silently but firmly held moral responsibility toward creating humanizing spaces for the voices of ill persons as well as for people marginalized by social injustice or inequity. The ontological shift Charmaz introduced in CGT enabled recovering the heretofore silenced voices of participants from the clutches of a claimed “objective truth” in the research findings of positivist research.
In her subsequent works, Charmaz also advocated and illustrated the need to use critical reflexivity to more meaningfully understand the hierarchies within and between social worlds as well as how researcher-participant relationships often shape participants' experiences. In doing so, she also demystified the colonialist nature of qualitative research methodologies, including grounded theory (GT) approaches. In such practices, implicitly individualist ideology is used to legitimate neoliberal globalization to help sustain the geopolitical economic power of a few countries over the rest of the world.
Details
Keywords
Markus Reihlen and Birgit Alexandra Apel
Internationalization process research has conceptualized the cross‐border move of firms as a process of learning. Yet, little attempts have been made to develop a constructivist…
Abstract
Purpose
Internationalization process research has conceptualized the cross‐border move of firms as a process of learning. Yet, little attempts have been made to develop a constructivist learning theory of the internationalizing firm. The aim of this paper is to apply a contemporary learning theoretical framework to analyze the internationalization of professional service firms.
Design/methodology/approach
A constructivist theory of learning is applied.
Findings
The paper explains learning during the internationalization process of professional service firms as a process of social interaction with the socio‐cultural environment. The paper outlines specific individual and social mechanisms through which firms acquire new knowledge when moving across borders and embed themselves into a new socio‐cultural market domain.
Research limitations/implications
The argument is theoretical in nature and has particular implications for future empirical research, which may investigate the specific social learning mechanisms of the internationalizing firm in particular professional service industries and cultural settings.
Originality/value
The application of a constructivist theory of learning to the internationalization of professional service firms is unique until now to the research field.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the national education standard (curriculum, NC) supports the development of enterprising behaviour and the constructivist…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the national education standard (curriculum, NC) supports the development of enterprising behaviour and the constructivist approach to learning at the general education level?
Design/methodology/approach
New methodology was designed based on the assessment of the evidence and frequency of the incidence of the indicators supporting enterprising behaviour in the text of the NC. A content analysis method is used to systematically code and categorize the target indicators from the text of the NC. According to the frequency of indicators that support enterprising behaviour the extent of support is assessed in different parts of the NC.
Findings
The findings of this study show that, while the general part of the NC fully reflects the development of attitudes and skills related to enterprising behaviour, in the competences and learning outcomes of the other parts of the NC, some indicators of enterprising behaviour have only moderate support. This shows that entrepreneurial attitudes are not fully recognized as an educational aim in general education, and for the purposes of moving from a behaviourist to a constructivist educational approach, rethinking and reformulating the learning outcomes in the NC is necessary.
Research limitations/implications
The critical aspects are: first, NC formats may differ between countries, and hence, the suggested analysis may suffer from limited replicability; second, the most critical aspect is that the present work analyses only the learning outcomes of the written NC, which is the basis for real action in the classroom.
Practical implications
The contribution of the current study may be summed up in three main issues: first, methodology for evaluating the extent to which the NC supports the development of enterprising behaviour; second, the need to rethink and reformulate the learning outcomes in the NC (e.g. for natural sciences); and third, evidence of the conflict between the expectations of society and the aims of education. The research results are providing objective feedback to educational experts, policymakers and practitioners to help schools innovate and support the education of enterprising people in general education.
Social implications
The research is an initiative supported by society and directed to support the learning of entrepreneurial behaviour of pupils at the schools of general education and use of constructivist learning approach.
Originality/value
The current study is contributing to the methodology of analysing the written national curricula at the general education level for identification the evidence and frequency of the indicators of enterprising behaviour in different parts of curriculum. The methodology elaborated and the results of this study may be considered applicable for the analysis of NC in other countries. In the future, the NC in connection with real teaching practice should be studied, focusing on finding new solutions to support the education of enterprising people in schools.
Details