Group tutoring in accounting: a phenomenological approach.

• Jurisdiction: European Union
• Author: Pashang, Hossein
• Date: 22 June 2011

1. BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM

   The current approach of tutoring the accounting thesis is seen to produce a set of constraints on the process of students' learning and their searches for identity construction. Above all, the approach puts limitation on the improvement of the communicative ability of the students to become more familiar with the vocabularies and rules that guide practical reasoning (Coulon 1995). The current approach mainly concentrates on the academic rules and institutional enforcement of textual production which are often detached from the object of learning or students' conceptual frameworks. Drawing on Charon (1995) students search intentionally after words of ideas, analysis, and constructs to maintain associated with the communities of the professional accountants and controllers. Students continue to hold misunderstanding about how to reconcile the academic theories and fundamental concepts with what they observe through their field studies and day-to-day experiences. Preconditioned by the traditional framework of single instructor and the setting of isolated dialogue, students have often faced the difficulty of de-coupling their learning orientations from the instructor's learning orientation, and in particular, from the self-loved subjects and knowledge that instructor's acquired during their academic education (Kreber 2007).

   Our review of the current and modernized manuals and instructive writings indicates that these textual products have mainly focused on the relationship of the single supervisor and students. The reason that the approach of single supervisor is problematic should be virtually related to the standpoint that this approach eliminates the social dimension of tutoring. In order to moderate the state of power relationship between the instructors and students the need of psychological support to students is repeatedly prescribed. For example, Cook (1980) believes that the psychological dimension should be the main focus of tutoring and prescribe that instructors should vitalize, maintain and further develop the students' motivation. On the other side, Frenckner (1980) places his emphasis entirely on the institutional dimension of the tutoring and prescribes that subject, formulation of problem, method of data collection, research process, order of chapters and writings should follow the academic research tradition of the university.

   Some of the ideas presented in these manuals take the pedagogical aspects of the tutoring as a point of departure. Instructors should define the subject and guide students to theorize and conduct their studies with concepts relevant for presentation of the subject (see Hartman 1993). According to Gerrevall (1992) pedagogical orientation of the tutoring should be shaped in regards with the choice of subject and the theme under the investigation. In fact, these writers will prescribe that subject is a key fundament of the pedagogical orientation in tutoring. In these manuals, the significance of the social dimension of tutoring is not regarded as a perspective that facilitates association between the students and the object of learning. Manuals written by Hagman (1994) and Selander & Selander include the concept of social dimension of tutoring among a range of other instructive concepts. However, these manuals do not present any method indicating that in which way the perspective of social dimension should be related into the instructors' practices of tutoring. The question which may naturally arise now is why psychological and institutional dimensions are dominantly figured as the standard of tutoring in the tutoring manuals while the social dimension is either marginally figured or eliminated. A preliminary answer to this question is that context of a single instructor cannot adopt the social dimension of tutoring at the level of practice. The implication is that if the subject of study and rules of conceptualization are pre-defined by instructors then the consequence is that: instructors purposefully eliminate the students' use of those concepts for the presentation and communication of what they observe during their field study. The theme of study needs to be regarded as a social object, results from participative interaction and interpretation.

   In the pedagogical literature the concept of social dimension of learning appears in a variety of forms. Yet, in connection with tutoring this concept is not present. One reason why the traditional approach of tutoring is persistent and sufficiently path dependent is that the learning oriented pedagogic has extensively focused on the teaching activities rather than the tutoring activities. Additionally, the measure of the current student evaluation is only oriented towards the assessment of the quality of courses not the quality of tutoring. Arguably, assessment of the quality of tutoring is impossible if the setting of tutoring is not built up in regards with a wider setting of social interaction. As we mentioned previously, any attempt for the inclusion of social dimension as a pedagogical tool needs a shift of paradigm--from the single tutoring approach--into a participatory approach. In the pedagogical literatures, success of the pedagogical issues such as deep learning, students learning process, student expectation of learning, process learning, teachers' capacity in planning (didactic) and supervising the learning process etc. have been repeatedly emphasized (Bowden and Marton 1998; Toohey 1999; Marton and Trigwell 2000). The aim of promoting these ideas is to improve the methods of teaching not the method of tutoring. The key question that this paper tends to address is that in which way these pedagogical ideas can be related into the setting of the tutoring of the accounting thesis.

   Thus, the main aim of the engagement in the practice of group tutoring is by inclusion of the social dimension at the level of practice to make the pedagogical premises of the paradigm of "student learning" relevant for the context of tutoring in the field of accounting.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

   The theoretical framework that motivates our engagement in the practice of group tutoring, and also, conceptualization of that practice--is drawn from the philosophy of phenomenology. In general, human beings engage in the process of learning from the contact with the social and physical environment surrounding them. Since the aim of learning is the self-construction of identity, then, if we make the environment of learning sufficiently wide, individuals get more choices and more alternatives to construct their...