Maslina MahdzanMazlina MustaphaBadriyah Bt Minai

International Conference on Life Long Learning 2011

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Background of the study Literature review Research objectives Research Method Results Conclusion

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Higher education is undergoing changes >>> challenges to ensure that the students manage to get good jobs after graduating from the university and manage to fulfill the requirements set by their employers.

Question the education system >>> for failing to produce quality and employable graduates.

Efforts are taken to revise and improve the curriculum, as well as the teaching and learning methods used at the universities (Arko-Cobbah, 2004).

Teacher Centered Learning (TCL) approach, is not adequate to prepare the students to face the job market (Kivela, 2005 ).

A new approach which centered on students in education is considered. This approach is called Student Centered Learning (SCL)

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Dato’ Mohamed Khaled Nordin in his mandate in 2009 claimed that to conduct courses solely using lecture (TCL) may not be appropriate anymore for certain courses and suggest that SCL approach be applied in the learning process so that students can enhance their thinking skill and become more innovative (Nordin, 2009).

Thus, SCL is used in Malaysian classrooms, especially at universities.

However, prior studies claimed that initial reactions from most students show a mixture of confusion, shock and overconfidence (Walker et al., 1996). Therefore, this study is conducted to examine the students perception of SCL.

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SCL is the most innovative instructional approach >>aims to enhance students’ application of knowledge, problem solving skills, higher-order thinking, and self-directed learning skills (Hung, 2009).

SCL is a learning strategy that demands the students work both in groups and individually to explore problems and become active knowledge worker than passive recipients of knowledge >>> students construct their learning by actively seeking their own information (Arko-Cobbah, 2004).

Tsou et al.(2009) find that, students are more active in raising questions, expressing their opinions, and are more eager to discuss the things they do not know

SCL approach promotes reactions, arouses questions, and allows the sharing of resources and knowledge in a group setting (Tseng et al., 2008). 5

SCL approach helps to develop students’ abilities in data collection, analysis, summary and understanding. >>> gives them more confidence in oral presentations (Tsou et al. 2009) ) >>>opportunity to develop their communication skill.

Horne et al. (2007) find that SCL encourages self-awareness, confidence, self-direction and independent learning skills.

Students are encouraged to develop their own lenses through which to view the world and be able to argue and defend their views with confidence (Moustakim, 2007).

SCL approach is also claimed to help students to have positive attitudes towards lifelong learning in the future(Tseng et al. 2008).

Some students indicated that they became better at validating the usefulness of the source (Tiwari, Chan, Wong, Chui & Patel, 2006), because they have chance to develop their critical thinking and deep understanding of the subject given to them. However, there are also study which claimed that students may show a mixture of confusion, shock and overconfidence in the initial stage (Walker et al., 1996). 6

This study attempts to examine the students’ perception on usage of SCL approach in accounting program.

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Data : primary data >> questionnaire Distributed to final year accounting

students in one of the public universities in Malaysia.

Data analysis: t-test, ANOVA.

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Descriptive statistics: Gender: Female (74.8%) and Male

(25.2%) Race: Malays (52.8%), Chinese

(39.4%) and Indian (4,7%) Average age : 23 years old CGPA range from 2.6 to 4.0

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Students’ awareness of SCL: Table 1 Students’ perception towards SCL:

Table 2 Independent t-test:

Male and Female: significant High achiever and low achiever: insignificant

ANOVA: Race: significant Chinese students and Malay students (p<0.01) Chinese students and Other students (p < 0.02) Chinese students have the lowest SCL mean

score among the groups. 10

The purpose of this study is to examine the students’ perspective on SCL in accounting program.

Overall, the students appear to indicate that SCL approach is suitable with their style of learning as student where SCL would provide a classroom atmosphere of exploring and debating new ideas and can link among various subjects.

In addition, they feel that SCL enhance their decision making skills and critical thinking skills, as well as improve their understanding.

However, based on the results, possibly more exposure and information need to be given to the students. Time is also an important factor for them to adjust to the new learning environment. 11

Thank you for your attention!!!

Any comment/feedback : mazlina05@gmail.com

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