Abstract
Following the shift towards online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting educators have faced the difficult challenge of adapting their course delivery to an online environment. The purpose of this chapter is to offer a testimonial from two postgraduate accounting courses that heavily rely on cooperative learning and covers their transition towards a distance education approach. The authors explore the challenges students have faced when taking part in group assignments in the online environment, focusing on both quantitative and qualitative analysis of their overall experience. The findings discussed in this chapter are meant to serve as a base for future studies on the topic of post-pandemic online education and cooperative learning in the accounting field.
TopBackground
Education has faced significant disruptions over the course of the last decade, due to ever growing use of digital technologies in schools and universities (Raimúndez-Urrutiaet al., 2017). While online education has been widely used in distance learning courses in order to offer students remote access to classes and teaching material (Reyneke & Shuttleworth, 2018), the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Moodle has been more and more prominent in recent years, as they aim to enhance the traditional offline classroom environment while promoting online interaction within students (Kerimbayev, Jaroslav, Abdykarimova, & Akramova, 2017). The correct implementation of LMSs allows for an increase in efficiency not only from a student’s perspective but also from an educator’s perspective, as online platforms make it easy for teachers to manage content worldwide (Sabharwal et al. 2018).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Moodle: Free and open-source learning management system (LMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License.
Learning Management System (LMS): A software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs.
Cisco Webex: A video conferencing and collaboration product suite.
Social Distancing: Limiting close face-to-face contact with others is the best way to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Cooperative Education: A program of education, generally leading to a degree, which includes alternating periods (e.g., terms, semesters, trimesters) of academic study and full-time work experience. This will generally result in additional time required to complete degree requirements.
Group Work: A technique within the field of social work wherein various groups, for instance educational and recreational, are guided by an agency leader to more effective personal adjustment and community participation.
Distance Learning: Form of education in which the main elements include physical separation of teachers and students during instruction and the use of various technologies to facilitate student-teacher and student-student communication.