Identifying and overcoming obstacles to learner-centred approaches in tertiary accounting education: a field study and survey of accounting educators' perceptions

Contrary to international accounting bodies' calls for the adoption of learner-centred approaches in accounting education, several recent studies (e.g. May et al., 1995; Adler and Milne, Accounting Education: an International Journal 6 (2), 1997) and further survey-based evidence from this paper suggest that learner-centred approaches have not been significantly and seriously adopted by most accounting educators. This paper explores the impediments to adopting learner-centred approaches. The research method began with a series of face-to-face interviews with accounting educators and administrators from four different New Zealand tertiary institutions and progressed to a relatively large-scale mail survey of accounting educators in Australia and New Zealand. The interview and survey data point to three broad groupings of impediments: a lack of student readiness, inadequate educator support mechanisms, and nonreflective teacher practices. The nature and range of these impediments casts doubts on the idea that the lack of learner-centred approaches can be explained in such simple terms as accounting educators not being given sufficient time to translate the professions' calls for change into practice. Instead, positive change is only likely to be realized through the adoption of a more vigorous and proactive approach.