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Analyses of teaching and learning in higher education are increasingly being based on a distinction between surface and deep learning. This distinction is helpful for investigating approaches used by teachers as well as student preferences for teaching and learning. Surface learning places an emphasis on memorizing facts and information as well as the relatively passive reproduction of content. In contrast, deep learning involves an intention to understand, the critical assessment of content and relating new information to past knowledge in meaningful ways. There has been an assumption that in the U.A.E. there is an orientation to surface learning in schools and higher education. To examine this assumption, an adaptation of questionnaires used with Western students (the Approaches to Study Skills Inventory for Students) was used with a small sample of ZU students. There are limitations in the use of this procedure and difficulties in interpreting the results. However, the results suggest that ZU students show strong beliefs and preference for deep learning approaches in addition to surface learning approaches. This finding is consistent with evidence obtained from student responses to assessment tasks, where there was evidence of deep learning. It was concluded that learning outcomes for ZU students could be enhanced by employing deep learning approaches to teaching and learning.

Student populations in higher education in the United States have become increasingly diverse as a result of demographic changes. As a result, educators need an understanding of the background and characteristics of these demographic subgroups in order to improve the quality of their education. Students’ approaches to learning affect their quality of learning and are influenced by their perceptions of the learning environment and assessment. The present study extends prior research by examining the approaches to learning, assessment preferences, and the relationship between approaches to learning and assessment preferences of intermediate accounting students enrolled in a public university in the United States with a diverse student population. Students with higher deep approaches to learning had higher preferences for assessment involving higher-order thinking tasks, integrated assessment, and nonconventional assessment. Students with higher surface approaches to learning had lower preferences for assessment involving higher-order thinking tasks. The differences in these relationships for subgroups of students defined by citizenship, age, gender, and race are presented. The implications of the results for teaching and learning in accounting education are discussed.

Fishbein and Ajzen's 1975 Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), updated by Ajzen and Fishbein in 1980, is advanced in this paper as an appropriate theory for measuring student's intentions to adopt deep or surface processing and to adopt specific learning strategies. TRA is a decision theory that explains motivation by emphasising the specific processes that individuals use to make choices. TRA captures an individual's motivation by using the concept of intention to perform a behaviour. A TRA model was constructed based on a four‐latent‐variable (deep, surface, strategic and intention) framework and empirically assessed for model data fit. The survey items showed loadings on the constructs of deep, surface and strategic processing under this framework, indicating strong construct validity for the three learning factors. The TRA model was found to strongly positively influence the adoption of the deep processing construct, and to strongly negatively influence the adoption of the surface processing construct. In addition, it was found to strongly positively influence the adoption of positive learning strategies and weakly discourage the use of negative learning strategies.

The purpose of this article is to identify the impact of differing teaching contexts on the approaches to learning of accounting undergraduates in different European countries by the use of a study process questionnaire.

The questionnaire used was Biggs’ R‐SPQ‐2F (Biggs et al.). This is a 20‐item questionnaire that identifies the learning styles of individual students in terms of deep and surface approaches.

Significant differences were found in the approaches to learning of the students in the countries concerned. The differences were rooted in two subcomponents: motive and strategy. Gender differences were also identified.

A major factor in the development process of future accountants is the education process that they undertake. This study identifies a methodology that is capable of comparing accounting students in different countries and potentially identifying the underlying reasons why the quality of the learning outcomes achieved may differ under differing educational systems.

This paper aims to report on an investigation to understand factors influencing students learning approaches in the discipline of auditing.

By using the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students research instrument the learning approaches of students in auditing at a South African residential university were measured on both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This was followed by focus group discussions to obtain a deeper understanding of the factors that influenced the ways their audit studies were approached.

The results revealed a contrasting view with that presented in the literature, in that senior students were more inclined to adopt a surface approach. This could be attributed to learning environment dimensions such as the teaching and assessment practices as well as students’ perceptions of the workload. Further statistical analysis revealed that gender and race influenced students’ learning approaches at specific levels.

The data are drawn from audit students at a residential university in South Africa; the findings of the study may thus not be generalisable beyond that context.

The study extends the existing student learning literature by adding perspectives from the discipline auditing. It could stimulate educators’ scholarly interest in pedagogic research which could contribute to curriculum and teaching method changes that equip audit educators to promote deep learning.

While the natural expectation is that students seek greater depth of learning as they develop intellectually during their studies, some research calls this into question and even suggests that student learning can become shallower from year to year. The present study aims to investigate the relative depth of students' learning at different stages of their undergraduate studies by comparing second‐year with third‐year students in two statistics units.

A survey was conducted using Biggs's Study Process Questionnaire. The survey results were used to compare second‐ and third‐year groups, as well as to investigate other variables by comparing the performances of: international and domestic students, male and female students, students who worked and those who did not work, and students who intended to register for a higher degree and those who did not.

Significant differences in approaches were found between male and female students; and between students who intended to enrol in a higher degree and those who did not.

Characteristics of the learning and teaching environment, including quality of teaching, were not investigated in this study. These and the possibility of students' mixed approaches to learning depending on the unit of study might have significant impact on the results. Additionally, this study is specific to one Sydney university; therefore the results might not be generalisable.

The findings from this study provide evidence that there is no significant difference between second and third year; or in international and local students' approaches to learning in statistics.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the cultural background of students and their learning approaches in a first year undergraduate accounting program.

While prior research in this area has more generally focused on the investigation of the approaches to learning by accounting students, there appears to have been little investigation into the learning approaches of students from different cultures who are studying accounting together at the same institution. The paper presents the results of a study of 550 students enrolled in an undergraduate accounting program at a multi‐campus university in Victoria, Australia, which used Biggs' study process questionnaire (SPQ) to assess the approaches to learning utilised by local and Chinese students.

The results showed that, while there were no significant differences in the use of surface and deep learning strategies by the Chinese and Australian students, there were significant differences in the learning motives of the two groups. Furthermore, the results contradict prior claims that Asian students rely principally on the memorisation and reproduction of factual information as a means of achieving academic success.

The study provides support for the notion that Chinese students may in fact have a culturally induced bias towards seeking understanding through deeper approaches to study.

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of achievement goal-setting intervention across three groups of new employees from a multinational medical company. During a three-day remote training program, the role of each achievement goal orientation (AGO) in goal setting intervention and their relations with trainees’ applied learning strategies were examined. This study proposed and validated an integrated training model for improving remote workplace learning effectiveness.

This study was based on two data sources, the pre- and posttests scores; time on task (deep learning: completing reflective practice) and time on content learning (surface learning: watching tutorials) retrieved from an adaptive learning platform. A total number of 133 participants were recruited in this study, and they were randomly assigned to three interventional groups. The intervention was grounded from the AGO theory and goal setting theory. A series of statistical analysis were conducted to examine the effect of each type of achievement goal setting as a prompt for new employees’ learning behavior and performance.

Results indicated that setting mastery goal at the beginning of the training program leads to productive learning outcomes. Compared with the groups being required to set performance goal (final rank) or not to set any goal for the training purpose, trainees’ who were assigned to set a mastery goal (final performance score) performed statistically significantly higher than the other groups. Additionally, learners who set mastery goal spent higher proportion of time on deep learning than learners from the other groups. The results proved mastery goal setting as an effective prompt for boosting workplace learning effectiveness.

Organizations and institutions can take setting mastery approach goals as a prompt at the beginning of the training to increase learning effectiveness. In this way, trainees are promoted to apply more deep learning strategies and achieve better learning outcomes while setting mastery goal for their training purpose.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine the intervention of goal setting and types of AGOs into workplace learning. This study adds to previous research on goal setting theory and AGO theory for the practical application and proposes an effective model for learners’ adaptive remote learning. Findings of this study can be used to provide educational psychological insights for training and learning in both industrial and academic settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of personal values on students’ learning behaviours. Hong Kong construction students are often criticized, by both practitioners and educators, as rote learners. To improve students’ learning processes, extensive research on a variety of aspects of construction education has been conducted. However, limited attention has been paid to the influence of personal values on students’ learning behaviours. The impact of personal value factors on the learning approaches of Chinese construction students in Hong Kong is investigated.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to ethically Chinese construction students in four universities in Hong Kong. A total of 820 questionnaires were distributed and 431 valid returns were collected.

The survey identified six influential values (namely, personal integrity, conservatism, determination, discipline, interpersonal relationships, and achievement), and shows that students who emphasize the virtues of personal integrity, determination, and a positive attitude toward achievement are better able to handle their interpersonal relationships, which will eventually lead them to engage in deep learning.

Work to develop appropriate value systems is thus recommended in freshmen courses, as is the use of cooperative learning approaches. Such value systems will have a long-term influence on the learning approaches of construction students.

The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has brought about renewed calls for the learning environment to foster a deep approach to learning by students. Given this, the purpose of this paper is to determine what aspects of the learning environment, as measured by the Course Experiences Questionnaire, created in two semester-long financial accounting classes, influence students’ approaches to learning, as perceived by Chinese accounting students.

A logistic regression model based on responses from 497 accounting students across two universities in China is used to address this issue.

The findings provide original empirical evidence of the Chinese accounting students’ expectations of deep learning. The main results showed that teaching quality and clear goals and standards were significantly associated with a deep approach to learning.

As two universities are included in the study, the findings are not necessarily generalisable to all accounting degree courses across China. There are practical implications for the teaching of IFRS in the financial accounting unit in China, and particularly for the two universities. Specifically, instructors need to foster students’ learning environment and inspire an enhanced approach to deep learning by focusing more on communicating their expected academic standards and improving their quality of teaching to reverse the passive approach taken by the vast majority of Chinese accounting students.

As one of the few studies from a Chinese accounting classroom context with respect to the learning approaches to teaching IFRS, this study will contribute to extend the existing knowledge of the learning environment of Chinese universities.