| In recent years concern has been voiced that academic accounting programs are not keeping pace with the dynamic and complex accounting profession that students are being prepared to enter. Recommendations from accounting professionals ask for accounting programs to prepare students to become independent learners, able to learn on their own. "Learning to learn" is a process of acquiring, understanding, and using a variety of learning strategies to help one learn more effectively. This study was designed to investigate the effect of integrating learning strategy instruction in an intermediate accounting course on students' self-reported learning strategy use and course performance.; Using a nonequivalent-groups pretest-posttest design, the quasi-experiment took place at a small, private, liberal arts university and a large, public, urban university. The instructors integrated learning strategy instruction in the treatment groups (Private, n = 27; Public, n = 13) over a 10 week period. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was administered at the beginning and end of the period. Paired-sample t-tests were used to examine for any difference between the treatment and control groups in the amount of change in six learning strategy subscale scores from pre- to posttest. Regression analysis was performed to investigate whether a relationship existed between the learning strategy instructional intervention and course performance, measured by final course grade.; The results obtained did not support the research hypotheses. The intervention proved ineffective at increasing self-reported learning strategy use and course performance. However, the results indicated that several learning strategies were related to performance. These included test anxiety reducing strategies, elaboration (e.g., summarizing and paraphrasing) strategies, and metacognitive self-regulation activities. Indications from the study's findings suggest that implementing recommended steps to enhance, intensify, and lengthen the learning strategy instructional intervention may provide stronger results. Suggestions for future research are offered. |
