The Effects of Collaborative Simulation on the Development of Students' Confidence in Managerial Accounting Skills

Author(s):  
Joseph C. Ugrin ◽  
Marcus D. Odom ◽  
Darla Honn ◽  
Ania Rose

This paper examines the effects of practice through collaborative simulation on the development of students' confidence in critical managerial accounting skills not commonly covered in traditional lecture courses. We assign students to teams that complete a large-scale integrative business simulation (LSIBS), which is our operationalization of a collaborative learning experience. Students completed the CAPSIM Foundations Business Strategy Simulation Game. The semester-long project requires students to practice the managerial accountant's job through phased assignments where they are required to make individual assessments, collaborate to set strategies, make decisions that align with the strategies, and report on the results of the decisions. We use a quasi-experimental methodology, with a pre-and post-test design involving 65 university students to examine the efficacy of using collaborative learning through simulation to improve students' confidence across a set of competencies defined by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). The findings demonstrate that using a collaborative simulation experience in a managerial accounting course can promote the development of students' confidence in critical managerial accounting skills that are often omitted from typical management accounting courses.

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rogmans ◽  
Wasseem Abaza

Background. Despite the increasing use of business simulation games in management education little is known about their effectiveness as learning tools. Aim. The aims of this study were to assess the effectiveness of an international business simulation game in enhancing levels of student engagement. Methods. We investigated student engagement levels after using a simulation game, as measured through quantitative self-reports obtained through a survey among students. The results were compared to engagement levels experienced in more traditional classroom based case discussions with the same students in the same course. The study was carried out across six class sections taught by two professors over two semesters. Results. The results show that average student engagement levels were higher during the traditional case study class than during the class using the simulation game. The standard deviation of the reported levels of student engagement was higher for the simulation game than for the traditional class, indicating that student responses were more extreme (either positive or negative) for the class using the simulation game. Students who were generally more motivated to learn reported higher levels of engagement with the simulation, whereas students with low levels of motivation who found the game complex became less engaged. Conclusion. Simulation games are not always necessarily effective in enhancing engagement among all students. The choice between traditional and experiential learning methods may be partly determined on the basis of the level of student motivation and other student characteristics.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Boies ◽  
Elena Lvina ◽  
Martin L. Martens

This study examined the relations between shared leadership in teams, team trust, potency, and performance. Forty-nine teams participating in a business simulation game rated their team potency, trust, and team leadership styles. Team potency and trust were positively related to shared transformational leadership and negatively related to passive avoidant leadership, but only the latter was significantly negatively related to team performance in the business strategy simulation. These results suggest that teams might not always benefit from transformational leadership qualities, but that “negative” leadership styles might be detrimental to performance and to the trust and confidence in the team.


2020 ◽  
pp. 095042222094567
Author(s):  
Julie Barnaby ◽  
David Devins ◽  
Nicholas Beech

It is recognized that the value of entrepreneurship education and the recruitment of practising entrepreneurs for such learning programmes can be problematic. This raises an important and challenging issue for universities when they are increasingly being asked to develop the leadership and management capabilities of entrepreneurs. In this account of practice, the authors explore the role for business simulation in the development of existing entrepreneurs’ and small business leaders’ strategic decision-making skills. The article describes and reflects on a pilot business simulation course, considering the challenges in the planning, the engagement of entrepreneurs and the delivery of the programme. It provides insights into the value of introducing this form of learning experience and exposes the significant challenges associated with engaging small business leaders.


2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (04) ◽  
pp. 1350020 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONIO R. ANAYA ◽  
JESÚS G. BOTICARIO

Collaborative learning environments require intensive, regular and frequent analysis of the increasing amount of interaction data generated by students to assess that collaborative learning takes place. To support timely assessments that may benefit students and teachers the method of analysis must provide meaningful evaluations while the interactions take place. This research proposes machine learning-based techniques to infer the relationship between student collaboration and some quantitative domain-independent statistical indicators derived from large-scale evaluation analysis of student interactions. This paper (i) compares a set of metrics to identify the most suitable to assess student collaboration, (ii) reports on student evaluations of the metacognitive tools that display collaboration assessments from a new collaborative learning experience and (iii) extends previous findings to clarify modeling and usage issues. The advantages of the approach are: (1) it is based on domain-independent and generally observable features, (2) it provides regular and frequent data mining analysis with minimal teacher or student intervention, thereby supporting metacognition for the learners and corrective actions for the teachers, and (3) it can be easily transferred to other e-learning environments and include transferability features that are intended to facilitate its usage in other collaborative and social learning tools.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 3982
Author(s):  
Giacomo Lazzeri ◽  
William Frodella ◽  
Guglielmo Rossi ◽  
Sandro Moretti

Wildfires have affected global forests and the Mediterranean area with increasing recurrency and intensity in the last years, with climate change resulting in reduced precipitations and higher temperatures. To assess the impact of wildfires on the environment, burned area mapping has become progressively more relevant. Initially carried out via field sketches, the advent of satellite remote sensing opened new possibilities, reducing the cost uncertainty and safety of the previous techniques. In the present study an experimental methodology was adopted to test the potential of advanced remote sensing techniques such as multispectral Sentinel-2, PRISMA hyperspectral satellite, and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) remotely-sensed data for the multitemporal mapping of burned areas by soil–vegetation recovery analysis in two test sites in Portugal and Italy. In case study one, innovative multiplatform data classification was performed with the correlation between Sentinel-2 RBR (relativized burn ratio) fire severity classes and the scene hyperspectral signature, performed with a pixel-by-pixel comparison leading to a converging classification. In the adopted methodology, RBR burned area analysis and vegetation recovery was tested for accordance with biophysical vegetation parameters (LAI, fCover, and fAPAR). In case study two, a UAV-sensed NDVI index was adopted for high-resolution mapping data collection. At a large scale, the Sentinel-2 RBR index proved to be efficient for burned area analysis, from both fire severity and vegetation recovery phenomena perspectives. Despite the elapsed time between the event and the acquisition, PRISMA hyperspectral converging classification based on Sentinel-2 was able to detect and discriminate different spectral signatures corresponding to different fire severity classes. At a slope scale, the UAV platform proved to be an effective tool for mapping and characterizing the burned area, giving clear advantage with respect to filed GPS mapping. Results highlighted that UAV platforms, if equipped with a hyperspectral sensor and used in a synergistic approach with PRISMA, would create a useful tool for satellite acquired data scene classification, allowing for the acquisition of a ground truth.


2010 ◽  
Vol 20-23 ◽  
pp. 700-705
Author(s):  
Tian Yuan ◽  
Shang Guan Wei ◽  
Zhi Zhong Lu

Multi-channel Virtual reality simulation technology is a kind of simulation technology, which support the grand scene and high degree of immersion, has better visualization effect. In this paper, a moving target monitoring collaboratory simulation technology based on multi-channel is studied. Firstly, study the mathematical modeling foundation of Multi-Channel technology systematically, based on the mobile target spatial model and co-simulation technology, select the appropriate applications of multi-channel technology, building laboratory simulation platform and achieved a space-based six-degree of freedom simulation of multi-channel moving target monitoring simulation. The experiment has proved that in multi-channel target monitoring co-simulation technology used in this paper has strong practicality, combine with a moving target-space model and co-simulation technology, the advantages of objective observation to solve the requirements like large-scale, realism, immersion requirements, etc.


Author(s):  
Marcel D'Eon ◽  
Peggy Proctor ◽  
Jane Cassidy ◽  
Nora McKee ◽  
Krista Trinder

Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) holds great promise in continuing to reform the management of complex chronic conditions such as HIV/AIDS, and Problem-based Learning (PBL) is a suitable format for IPE. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a large scale, compulsory interprofessional PBL module on HIV/AIDS education. In 2004, 30 physical therapy and 30 medical students at the University of Saskatchewan engaged in the HIV/AIDS PBL module. By 2007 over 300 students from seven healthcare programs were involved.Methods and Findings: The module was evaluated over the years using student satisfaction surveys, focus groups, self-assessments, and in 2007 with written pretest/post-tests. Students rated the learning experience about both HIV/AIDS and about interprofessional collaboration, at 4 or 5 out of 6 and effect sizes fell between d = .70 and 3.19. That only one pre-test/post-test study was conducted at a single institution is one of the limitations of this study.Conclusions: Students generally thought highly of the interprofessional PBL module on HIV/AIDS and learned a considerable amount. Although more research is needed to substantiate the self-assessment data, establish what and how much is being learned, and compare PBL to alternative methodologies, PBL is a promising approach to IPE.


Author(s):  
Gibran Garcia ◽  
Insung Jung

Previous studies have revealed that when video gamers, or users of three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds, display intense concentration coupled with an emotional engagement in their undertaking, they are affected by multisensory stimuli. This can lead to developing a feeling of detachment from the physical world, which, in turn, can lead to high levels of participation and engagement. Notwithstanding these results, it remains unclear as to whether students can experience the same kind of immersion in two-dimensional (2D) platform-based online collaborative learning spaces as has been achieved in video games and 3D worlds and, if they actually can, which features would lead to similar levels of increased engagement. This study is one of the first attempts to investigate the immersion experiences of students engaged in two 2D online collaborative learning platforms, one text-based and the other video-based. Data from eight students revealed that key features of immersion observed in video games and 3D worlds also appeared during the online collaborative activities but that the way such immersion was perceived by the students was greatly affected by the characteristics of the individual platform. When emotional engagement was considered, empathy was found to play an important role in the participants’ immersion experiences. Implications for practice or policy: Text-based platforms could be effective in motivating students to focus more on the postings, while video-based platforms may be more effective in generating empathy with others through observation of body language. When selecting a communication platform for online collaboration, sensory stimuli of the platform should be carefully examined. Empathy could be developed prior to an online collaborative activity so that students reflect on their thoughts and consider others’ feelings for a more immersive learning experience.


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