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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.

Product quality standardization is the solution to market collapses due to quality-insensitive pricing regimes prevalent in West African (WA) rice value chains. However, access to local rice that is differentiated by quality standards is limited. This paper explores feasibility of quality standardization of local rice and evaluates how its price–quality connecting effect depends on retailer characters/reactions.

This study uses panel data from a wholesale randomized control trial (RCT) and three surveys of 135 rice retailers in Ghana.

Improved local food value chains and access to quality differentiated products are impactful entry points for import substitution policies. The strength of interretailer competition, retail infrastructure and wholesaler activities matter for a stronger connection of prices and quality, given uptake of quality-standardized local rice.

Access to quality-differentiated local rice can be increased via private and third-party certification. This addresses the prevailing inefficient pricing and its related problems. The positive impacts of such access would be magnified by designing quality certification interventions to elicit regular-frequent purchases by retailers and target retailers with adequate retail infrastructure in high competition areas. However, this study only explored profitability and opportunities for strategic behavior as the behavioral basis for quality-sensitive pricing. Other impact mechanisms could be explored in further research that includes consumer data.

Despite their difficulty and limited use in value chains studies, RCT and panel data methods are used. This study is the first to empirically analyze feasibility of introducing product standardization, a missing institution in the WA local rice markets.

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.

The globalisation of higher education has created new challenges for educators to remain dynamic in teaching science undergraduates with diverse cultural backgrounds. The current study explores this challenge by evaluating the different personal factors among biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates that affect their learning approaches as well as to identify course-specific teaching approaches in order to determine their impacts on students' learning.

A cross-sectional survey design based on study process questionnaire (SPQ), and approaches and study skills inventory for students (ASSIST) was utilised to collect quantitative data from 129 biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates.

Biosciences undergraduates adopted deep and achieving learning approaches as they progressed through the curriculum, whilst surface learners dominated the pharmacy course. Ethnicity was shown to affect the learning approaches among the undergraduates. Although male undergraduates from both courses were more competitive than the female, elder female undergraduates tend to adopt deep learning approach. Pre-university qualifications did not significantly influence the undergraduate's learning approach. The contrasting finding on the preferred teaching approaches between biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates has highlighted the importance of providing tailored teaching and learning strategies to cater different students' learning needs.

This study has demonstrated the combinational use of SPQ and ASSIST instruments to compare undergraduate's learning approaches with preferred teaching approaches. The current finding could support the development of teaching and learning practice among the biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates with multicultural background.

Cognitive style has been identified to be significantly influential in deciding users' preferences of search engines. In particular, Witkin's field dependence/independence has been widely studied in the area of web searching. It has been suggested that this cognitive style has conceptual links with the holism/serialism. This study aims to investigate the differences between the field dependence/independence and holism/serialism.

An empirical study was conducted with 120 students from a UK university. Riding's cognitive style analysis (CSA) and Ford's study preference questionnaire (SPQ) were used to identify the students' cognitive styles. A questionnaire was designed to identify users' preferences for the design of search engines. Data mining techniques were applied to analyse the data obtained from the empirical study.

The results highlight three findings. First, a fundamental link is confirmed between the two cognitive styles. Second, the relationship between field dependent users and holists is suggested to be more prominent than that of field independent users and serialists. Third, the interface design preferences of field dependent and field independent users can be split more clearly than those of holists and serialists.

The contributions of this study include a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between field dependence/independence and holists/serialists as well as proposing a novel methodology for data analyses.

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.

A series of seven empirical studies conducted in Sheffield lend support to the notion that learners do spontaneously display styles of information processing behaviour originally identified by Pask and Scott, that even versatile postgraduate students are susceptible to the effects of matching and mismatching of teaching and learning styles, and that the arena in which these learning styles may be observed extends beyond learning to information seeking activity including database searching. Much research is still to be done to resolve the enigma of learning styles. However, arguably Pask’s time has come in the sense that current computing software and educational infrastructure now allow with relative ease the testing of the potential of Pask’s constructs using large samples of students, and the realisation of this potential in the development and delivery of mainstream teaching and learning resources.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of real, localized case studies on students’ learning engagement, the learning process and learning experience and the role of such case studies in influencing students’ learning outcomes.

Data were collected from 400 undergraduate students through an online questionnaire immediately after discussion of the case in Business Information Systems classes. Student learning from the case study was measured by two components consisting of case knowledge and case perceptions. The student course engagement questionnaire was used to examine engagement in skills, emotions, participation and performance while the study process questionnaire was administered to assess students’ learning approaches. Additionally, the seven predominant roles of the feedback were used to analyse students’ learning experience. Finally, students’ learning outcomes were assessed both in group performance and individual performance. Structure equation modelling was applied to test the causal model.

The results revealed that the case study had a positive influence on students’ engagement in skills and emotions. Moreover, case perceptions led students to surface approach in their learning. Furthermore, case knowledge had a positive impact on the learning experience.

The study suggests that localized case studies should be designed cautiously. Furthermore the method of instruction regarding the method must be clearly explained for undergraduate students. Future research should consider a way of evaluating academic achievement as a result of using localized cases.

The findings reported in the paper contributed to an area of educational research by emphasizing on the mediating role of learning engagement, the learning process and the learning experience.

The individual characteristics of students can have a strong influence on the success of the adopted innovations in terms of their transferability and sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to compare the motivations and approaches to learning on degrees with differing vocational components.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and approaches to learning framework were used as theoretical background. Questionnaires were used to generate data. The sample was composed by 270 students enroled on differing degrees in term of motivation (accounting and nursing).

The results reveal differences in the approaches to learning and motivation between nursing and accounting students. Nursing degree seem to attract more internally motivated students, presenting significantly higher scores in terms of deep approach and lower scores on surface approach. Significant relationships where found between motivation and approaches.

Data are obtained from students studying at a specific university in two degrees.

The result suggest that different degrees could attract students with different motivations and approaches to learning. Educators must be aware of which type of students are being attracted to their classrooms, because the inconsistencies between the students’ motives and approaches, the way the contents are presented, the pedagogy and the assessment system could result in poorer learning and failure to transfer or sustain innovations.

This paper adds to the very scarce literature linking motivation and approaches. The implications for curriculum design and delivery and specifically for assessment design are of interest for educators.

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.