Proceedings

2. RESEARCH DESIGN
Developing the analysis of our research project involves the use of two distinctive
instruments: a questionnaire and the examination process that will further be
described.
In order to develop the analysis that was aimed through our study we implemented a
questionnaire on a sample of accounting students. Choosing the students was done
based on our intention of continuing our research in the area of accounting students’
academic performance by considering the same group of students that were
investigated a year ago when considering a different course (Financial Accounting).
This group comprises students within a three years accounting programme of Babes-
Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We therefore aimed a group of 389
students in their 3 rd university year, at the end of the first semester. The questionnaire
was only administered to a number of 367 students that took the final exam in
Controlling during the 2009 winter exam session period. We finally ended up in using
a number of 316 questionnaires for this study. We eliminated those questionnaires that
either were missing a significant number of filled questions (which we considered to
be 10 out of a total of 29), either had no response for the last question of the
questionnaire. This last question required students to self-acknowledge their grade for
the Controlling final exam, which they have just been taken.
The questionnaire was implemented after a 14 weeks period of educational activities
comprising courses and seminars. Controlling courses and seminars were structured
during the semester based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Students were required to read the
materials assigned for the classes and to do not more than 3 problems or exercises per
week as homework. The scope of the seminar was to check the comprehension of the
material assigned to be read and to apply the theory to a specific situation. Courses
were designed to exercise students’ abilities to analyze, synthesize and evaluate a
given case study. The courses preceded seminars, the learning process therefore
following the presented order of the taxonomy.
A particularity of our study is that implementing the questionnaire was correlated with
students’ actual examination through written final exam during the exam session
period. Students attending the final exam in Controlling were presented with two sets
of documents. Each set was het-up and comprised A4 format white paper and a cover
page. The cover page presented a series of distinctive elements such as name of the
course, research project, date etc. One set comprised the exam questions and its cover
page included a small red square (20 cm side). The other set comprised the
questionnaire and its cover page included a small blue square (20 cm side). The cover
page for the exam questions required students to fill in their personal information
(name) in a particular designed space, while the cover page for questionnaire did not
ask for students’ name. Moreover, students were instructed that the questionnaires
were anonymous in order to ensure the objectivity of their answers. Students were
allocated separate time required for responding the exam questions and for filling in
the questionnaire. This information was clearly explained to them after handing the
two sets of documents. At the end of the allocated time, students were asked to place
their questionnaires in a distinctive set that was separated from that of the exam
documents.
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