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Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Use of Poster Projects as a Motivational and
Learning Tool in Managerial Accounting Courses
Nergis Nalan Altintas, Ayca Zeynep Suer, Emre Selcuk Sari & Mirac Sema
Ulker
To cite this article: Nergis Nalan Altintas, Ayca Zeynep Suer, Emre Selcuk Sari & Mirac Sema Ulker (2014) The Use of Poster Projects as a Motivational and Learning Tool in Managerial Accounting Courses, Journal of Education for Business, 89:4, 196-201, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2013.840553
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2013.840553
Published online: 02 May 2014.
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ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2013.840553
The Use of Poster Projects as a Motivational
and Learning Tool in Managerial
Accounting Courses
Nergis Nalan Altintas, Ayca Zeynep Suer, Emre Selcuk Sari, and Mirac Sema Ulker
Istanbul University, Istanbul, TurkeyPoster projects are an alternative method of motivation, learning, and information dissemination in education. The main purpose of this initial study was to determine the effect of poster projects on the motivational and learning process of managerial accounting students. In addition, the authors aimed to compare the opinions of managerial accounting students regarding traditional term papers and poster projects. A poster project that culminated in a professional-style poster session was assigned. Students completed a group project producing a poster describing the production process of a manufacturing company and determining the most appropriate costing system for that company with underlying reasons. Two questionnaires were conducted after each assignment in order to measure the effect of the poster project on the motivation and learning of the managerial accounting students. This pilot study is the first to explore perceptions of poster projects as a motivational and learning tool in managerial accounting courses in the world.
Keywords: learning, managerial accounting, motivation, poster projects, undergraduate education
Because students cannot embody easily the concepts ex-plained in managerial accounting courses, they are not as motivated as they might be in courses designed to embody the concepts discussed.
Written reports, essays, and oral presentations are the most popular types of assignment at undergraduate level to im-prove student motivation by offering active engagement with the course material. One successful alternative to conven-tional class assignments is having students construct a poster on a special topic (Hughes, 2005). Poster presentations have proved to be a preferred method of displaying information at conferences, and are being used increasingly as a teaching method. The objective of the poster presentations is, on one hand, to encourage and motivate students especially in their basic courses where they do not find any relationship with real world applications and, on the other hand, to provide an assessment tool to teachers (Mont´ufar-Chaveznava, Yousuf, & Caldelas, 2008).
Correspondence should be addressed to Nergis Nalan Altintas, Istanbul University, School of Business, Department of Accounting, Avcılar Kam-pusu, Avcılar 34320, Istanbul, Turkey. E-mail: nyakar@istanbul.edu.tr
Posters present some advantages and disadvantages com-pared to traditional assignments. Some advantages are flexi-bility, space saving, long-term availaflexi-bility, improved interac-tions, and more effectiveness in conveying ideas (Mont´ufar-Chaveznava et al., 2008). In addition; a poster encourages clear and concise thinking, provides opportunities for co-operation in group presentations, develops learning through peer tutoring and self, peer and tutor assessment, enhances communication skills, introduces aspects of good profes-sional practice (Berry &Nyman, 1998). Poster sessions are suitable for classes of all sizes, promote collaborative learn-ing, encourage creativity and independent thought, develop research and communication skills, and ease the grading bur-den on instructors (Baird, 1991). The disadvantages are that not all results fit well to its format, they are difficult to trans-port, they require more time and expense in preparation, and can be weary for presenter (Mont´ufar-Chaveznava et al., 2008).
Posters have been identified as a useful undergraduate learning tool for many of the science disciplines. We thought that posters could provide a creative and stimulating alter-native to traditional teaching and assessment methods in managerial accounting courses. Our rationale for assigning
POSTER PROJECTS AS MOTIVATION IN MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING COURSES 197
poster projects to managerial accounting students was to in-troduce them to a new motivation and learning tool.
The remainder of this study is organized into four sec-tions. The first section offers a pithy review of the academic literature on posters as a pedagogic tool. In the second section we describe the research design. The findings of the study are reported in the third section. While in the last section conclusions are presented and future research is suggested.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature on the uses of posters is rich and deep. As suggested by the comprehensive bibliography prepared by Brownlie (2007) posters have been used as an effective ped-agogic device over a range of disciplines, including such natural sciences as chemistry (Wimpfheimer, 2004), biology (Deutch, 2011), and mathematics (Berry & Houston, 1995; Berry & Nyman, 1998; Brown & Burroughs, 2008; Hess & Brooks, 1998; Jones, 2008; Zevenbergen, 1999); such social sciences as psychology (Hughes, 2005; Johnson & Green, 2007; Marek, Christopher, & Koenig, 2002) and sociology (Lowry, 1992); and numerous professional fields of study such as nursing (Chabeli, 2002; Conyers, 2003; Halligan, 2008), pharmacy (Hunter, 1997), and marketing (Stegemann & Sutton-Brady, 2009a). Other studies have explored the ad-vantages of poster projects (McNamara, Larkin, & Beatson, 2010), the methods to evaluate them (Stegemann & Sutton-Brady, 2009b); the efficacy of electronic poster presentations (Shin, 2012) and their use as an alternative to written exami-nations (Mills, Sweeney, DeMeo, Marino, & Clarkson, 2000) and even academic publications (Rowe & Dragan, 2009).
Though it is a fairly common pedagogic tool in many other fields, there is no extant research on the use of posters in undergraduate managerial accounting courses. This may be the first study conducted in the world on the use of poster projects as a learning tool to motivate students in a managerial accounting course.
RESEARCH DESIGN
A poster project to culminate in a professional-style poster session was assigned in managerial accounting course. First, students completed a group project producing a poster de-scribing the production process of a manufacturing com-pany and determining the most appropriate costing system for that company with underlying reasons. The second activ-ity was attendance by the class at a poster session on campus; students stood adjacent to their posters, presenting findings to attendees.
Data Collection Tool
To assess the effectiveness of the poster project as a motiva-tion and learning tool, we administered two quesmotiva-tionnaires after each assignment. The first focused on opinions of
stu-dents about poster projects and the second on traditional term papers.
The first questionnaire had two parts. The first part aimed to gather information about students’ perceptions with regard to the poster projects. Using a 5-point Likert-type scale with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), students indicated their level of agreement for each item. In this questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha value was deter-mined as 76.4%. The second part aims to gather demographic information such as the students’ gender, grade point average (GPA), and internship.
To capture students’ opinions,the second questionnaire was conducted after completion of the traditional term pa-pers. Students were asked to express their feelings and per-ceptions toward the traditional term papers while making comparisons to poster projects. The second questionnaire had two parts. The first part aimed to gather information about students’ perceptions with regard to the traditional term papers and poster projects. Using a 5-point Likert-type scale with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), students indicated their level of agree-ment for each item. In this questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha value was determined as 69.4% for the first part. The second part aimed to gather demographic information such as the students’ gender, GPA, and internship.
Participants
There were 252 third-year students enrolled to the undergrad-uate program in School of Business at Istanbul University that took the managerial accounting course in 2011. Of the 252 students, 156 of them participated in the first questionnaire and 120 in the second questionnaire. Detailed information about the descriptive statistics of the students who partici-pated to the first and second questionnaires is displayed in Table 1.
Table 1 shows that a great majority of the students were not employed at that time. As to the GPA of the students, most of the students reported that their GPA was more than 2.50. Half of the students reported that their grade in a cost accounting course was above BB. Nearly half of the students had internship experience. More than half of the students were men.
Data Collection and Analysis
The SPSS version 17 was used for the analysis. To find out whether demographic variables affected the responses of the students, independenttand chi-square tests were conducted.
FINDINGS
Frequency Analysis
Among the participants of the first questionnaire, 46.1% of the students thought that poster project embodied the man-agerial accounting topics and also 46.1% of the students
TABLE 1
Demographic Information of the Participants
First
Note: GPA=grade point average.
thought the subjects that they had learned in managerial ac-counting course would be beneficial to their future business life. A total of 44.2% of the students thought that innovative assignments made the managerial accounting subjects more clear (see Table 2).
Among the participants of the second questionnaire, only 16.7% of the students thought that traditional term papers are more enjoyable than poster projects. In addition, only 34.1% of the participants thought that traditional term pa-pers embody the managerial accounting topics. And, also, only 28.4% of the students thought that traditional term papers make the managerial accounting topics more clear. Nearly 65% of the students thought that attending the poster presentations is beneficial to understand the cost-ing methods and contribution of each group member is higher in poster project than traditional term paper. More importantly, while more than half of the students preferred poster projects, only 25% of them preferred traditional term papers (see Table 3).
As seen in Table 4, students especially reported that poster projects are more enjoyable than traditional term papers and poster projects make the managerial accounting topics more clear. Also, in terms of being beneficial and embodying the managerial accounting topics, poster projects are preferred to traditional term papers by students.
Chi-Square Test
In the first questionnaire, to understand whether the relation between opinions of the male and female students about tra-ditional term papers in terms of being more beneficial, being more enjoyable, embodying the managerial accounting top-ics, and making the managerial accounting topics more clear were statistically significant, a chi-square test was conducted as summarized in Table 5. For the demographic variables
TABLE 2
Frequency Analysis of the Statements in the First Questionnaire
Statement
Strongly agree
(%) Agree (%)
Neither agree nor
disagree (%) Disagree (%)
Strongly
disagree (%) M SD
I think in terms of learning, poster projects are more beneficial than traditional term papers.
14.70 19.90 16.70 25.00 23.70 2.7692 1.39514
I think poster projects are more enjoyable than traditional term papers.
11.50 29.50 17.90 25.00 16.00 2.9551 1.28687
I think in terms of learning, teamwork style poster project is more beneficial.
11.50 32.10 24.40 19.20 12.80 3.1026 1.21909
I think poster project embodies the managerial accounting topics.
11.50 34.60 24.40 21.20 8.30 3.1987 1.14959
I love the managerial accounting course.
10.30 25.60 24.40 21.80 17.90 2.8846 1.26471
I think the topics that I have learned in this course will be beneficial for my future business life.
12.80 33.30 30.10 14.70 9.00 3.2628 1.13656
I think innovative assignments make the managerial accounting topics more clear.
15.40 28.80 19.20 21.80 14.70 3.0833 1.30981
I think I can relate the managerial accounting course with the other business courses.
7.70 34.00 28.80 17.90 11.50 3.0833 1.13569
POSTER PROJECTS AS MOTIVATION IN MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING COURSES 199
TABLE 3
Frequency Analysis of the Statements in the Second Questionnaire
Statement
Strongly agree
(%) Agree (%)
Neither agree nor
disagree (%) Disagree (%)
Strongly
disagree (%) M SD
I think in terms of learning, traditional term papers are more beneficial than poster projects.
10.80 20.00 19.20 28.30 21.70 2.7000 1.30674
I think traditional term papers are more enjoyable than poster projects.
5.00 11.70 20.00 39.20 24.20 2.3417 1.11894
I think in terms of learning, teamwork style traditional term papers are more beneficial.
9.20 27.50 21.70 25.80 15.80 2.8833 1.23794
I think traditional term papers embody the managerial accounting topics.
8.30 25.80 23.30 22.50 20.00 2.8000 1.26092
I love the managerial accounting course.
6.70 28.30 28.30 15.80 20.80 2.8417 1.23667
I think the subjects that I have learned in this course will be beneficial for my future business life.
18.30 40.00 22.50 8.30 10.80 3.4667 1.20177
I think traditional term papers make the managerial accounting topics more clear.
6.70 21.70 25.00 22.50 24.20 2.6417 1.24884
I think I can relate the managerial accounting course with the other business courses.
17.50 40.80 18.30 15.80 7.50 3.4500 1.17287
I think that attending the poster presentations is beneficial to understand the costing methods.
12.0 50.7 13.3 18.7 5.3 3.4533 1.09413
I think that contribution of each group member is higher in poster project than traditional term paper.
22.9 40.6 9.4 15.6 11.5 3.4792 1.31373
I prefer poster project to traditional term paper.
24.0 29.2 21.9 12.5 12.5 3.3958 1.31773
other than gender, there was no significant relation between the students’ opinions.
In the second questionnaire, as a result of the chi-square test that was applied to see whether there was a significant relation among students according to selected demographic
variables, related to the answers given to the question as to whether they thought that poster projects are more beneficial and more enjoyable, embody the managerial accounting top-ics, and make the managerial accounting topics more clear or not, the findings shown in Table 6 were obtained.
TABLE 4
Comparison of Two Questionnaires in Terms of Selected Factors
Poster project (%) Traditional term papers (%)
Statement Strongly agree Agree Total Strongly agree Agree Total
Are more beneficial 14.70 19.90 34.60 10.80 20.00 30.80
Are more enjoyable 11.50 29.50 41.00 5.00 11.70 16.70
Embody the managerial accounting topics
11.50 34.60 46.10 8.30 25.80 34.10
Make the managerial accounting topics more clear
15.40 28.80 44.60 6.70 21.70 28.40
TABLE 5
Chi-Square Test Comparing Male and Female Students on Each Factor (First Questionnaire)
Are more
more clear df N
Gender .049
∗
.433 .947 .096 4 156
∗Relationship is significant.
TABLE 6
Chi-Square Test Comparing Students With Respect to Selected Demographic Variables on Each Factor
(Second Questionnaire)
Note: GPA=grade point average.∗Relationship is significant.
CONCLUSION
By introducing poster projects in managerial accounting courses, we offer an alternative format for students to express learning while providing students with valuable skills for their future careers as potential managers. We expected the poster project would strengthen their communication skills, improve critical thinking, foster independent learning, and aid them in appreciating the role a particular methodology plays in understanding managerial accounting topics.
Among the participants of the first questionnaire, it was found that nearly half of the students had positive attitudes toward poster projects, whereas, among the participants of the second questionnaire, about only 30% of them had positive attitudes toward traditional term papers. Nearly 65% of the students thought that attending the poster presentations was beneficial for their understanding the costing methods. More importantly, while more than half of the students preferred poster projects, only 25% of them preferred traditional term papers.
The results of the first questionnaire support the fact that for the demographic variables other than gender, there was no significant relation between the students’ opinions. In the second questionnaire, for embodying the managerial ac-counting topics, there was significant relation with respect to gender and GPA; for making the managerial accounting
top-ics more clear, there was a significant relation with respect to employment.
From the comments and evaluations offered by the stu-dents, the posters appeared to be an enjoyable and effective means of assessing managerial accounting students. The re-sults do suggest that the poster project may be a more effec-tive motivation and learning tool than traditional term papers. Alternative assessment tools such as the poster projects pre-sented in this article can be used in place of more traditional approaches to motivate the students. Further research can be conducted on the subject by researching the applicability of poster projects to other topics in managerial accounting and to graduate level accounting courses.
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