Our Research
The objective of Stephen & Astrid's research is to improve our teaching and contribute towards improving learning in higher and professional education. To this end they have three broad but complimentary research interests:
Their current research projects include:
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Featured research
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Students’ experience of team assessment with immediate feedback in a large accounting class
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Team assessment has been suggested as a competency-based collaborative learning technique. Critical to the success of an assessment for learning, in competency-based education, is the use of formative feedback. This study reports on the development of, and the students’ experience of, a Team Assessment with Immediate Feedback (TAIF), in which immediate formative feedback is provided to the students by their peers and the assessment instrument (the IF-AT form). Results of the quantitative and qualitative data, collected in a survey, suggest that the majority of the students experienced the TAIF positively. Many students highlighted that they had constructed new knowledge and understanding of the content and practiced numerous skills during the team assessment. The learning benefits of the immediate feedback component of the team assessment were widely acknowledged by the students. The study also provided some initial evidence that team assessment in a culturally diverse student cohort may enhance intercultural collaboration. Team assessment may also contribute towards reestablishing the link between professional accounting education and practice. Read more
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The development of Messenger bots for teaching and learning and accounting students’ experience of the use thereof
This study reports on the development of two Messenger bots, designed to facilitate the learning of introductory and intermediate accounting. The Messenger bots were developed using a visual development environment that requires no coding knowledge. A thick description of the development of the Messenger bots is provided to encourage replication. It is submitted that instructors, rather than programmers, should take ownership of developing Messenger bots for teaching and learning. Preliminary exploration of the students’ satisfaction yielded positive results. Suggestions are made for specific applications of Messenger bots in teaching and learning and for further research exploring the use of Messenger bots in teaching and learning.
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Research impact
In the 2017 Brigham Young Accounting Rankings for Accounting Education Research over the last six years, we are ranked jointly 10th. We are two of only five South Africans ranked on this list. We are members of Accounting Education's editorial review board, which has the highest H Index (17) of the accounting education journals and we was invited in 2018 to present the keynote at the annual RMIT Accounting Educators conference in Melbourne, Australia. We have also served on various Sub Committees of the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum (TLC) Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA) and were invited to present a web conference, stemming from my research, to members of the TLC section of the AAA. Applying the method of Bernardi et al. (2016) rankings in Accounting Education for authors from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, the UK, and the US, we would potentially be ranked 20th with 4 qualifying publications for the six year author ranking provided, based on full-credits. Our h-index per Google Scholar currently 8 (Stephen) and 7 (Astrid). Stephen is currently a C1 rated researcher in South Africa and Astrid has now applied for her ranking.