Educator’s Forum  

Integrating e-Learning Applications to Enhance Student Success in Financial Accounting 

On November 1, 2004, Athabasca University opened Version 8 of ACCT253 — Introductory Financial Accounting, one of the institution’s most innovative course offerings in terms of integration of e-learning applications.

Upon registration, students are sent a hard copy of the textbook. Password-protected step-by-step course instructions are available to students online, as is a highly interactive teaching / learning tool known as LIFA (Lyryx Interactive Financial Accounting). LIFA provides students with self-paced lessons. After each new concept is introduced, students can practise the concept through auto-correcting, algorithmically generated “explorations” that provide instant feedback. Students’ homework is tied to assessment through the completion of “labs”. The labs are also auto-corrected, algorithmically generated questions, but are more difficult than the explorations. Students can try the labs as often as they wish; only the best grade is auto-recorded in the grade book. (Explorations and labs go far beyond multiple-choice, true/false, or fill-in-the-blank questions. They involve problem solving in which students are required, for example, to make journal entries, perform calculations, and prepare bank reconciliations and financial statements.)

Athabasca University requires students to achieve an average grade of 85% on the lab component of the course worth 15% of their final grade. Students are motivated to do their homework, because it is tied directly to their assessment, without the requirement of manual marking. Students do each homework assignment more than once to achieve the standards of excellence AU has set for them.

The academic experts, or tutors, for the course can “watch” student performance by monitoring the grade book. In addition to the labs, students are required to do two online quizzes in LIFA worth 5% each (auto-graded and auto-recorded in the grade book). A practice LIFA quiz is available. Students are also required to do a case study worth 5%, and can choose between a research paper (recommended for non-accounting majors) and an accounting practice set (recommended for accounting majors). The mid-term and final exams are done manually and are worth 30% and 40%, respectively.

The feedback from students regarding the new e-learning format has been very positive. At the time of writing this article, 242 students had completed the course, attaining an average of 76%. The average passing grade was 85% and there were 25 failures. These statistics to date represent a statistically significant improvement over the results achieved in the previous course format for ACCT253.

Tilly Jensen

Athabasca University

tillyj@athabascau.ca