Students' Perceptions of the Introduction of a Blended Learning Environment: An Exploratory Case Study

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) provide the opportunity to deliver blended learning approaches that combine mixes of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) with various delivery methods and media. In 2008 and 2009, the University of Winchester in the UK redesigned a variety of accounting and financial management modules for presentation in a blended learning environment. An exploratory, qualitative case study investigated students' perceptions of the new approach. Through focus groups, students reported favourably on the blended learning approach and the views of students correlated with previous research, although there were some contrary findings. Focus groups raised issues concerning students' expectations, competence and engagement. Resources and institutional practices were identified as factors in students' attitudes towards blended learning. Issues about communication, student interaction and collaboration also emerged. Finally, some practical lessons from this case study are proposed.     

Tax education in the UK: a survey of tax courses in undergraduate accounting degrees

This paper presents the results of a postal survey designed to examine the teaching of taxation in UK universities. The project looks at taxation in undergraduate accounting degree programmes and adopts an objective centred focus. The principal aim of the survey was to examine the relationships between some characteristics of individual tax courses, including the course objectives and coverage, staffing, teaching and assessment methods, in an attempt to draw some conclusions on the nature of tax education in UK accounting degrees. The results of the survey and consequent analysis may provide taxation and accounting educators, professional bodies and researchers into accounting education with an insight into approaches to, and methods used in, taxation teaching. It may also present a framework for comparative international research in tax education.     

Book Reviews

References to ‘customers’ have become commonplace in the policy discourses within UK government and other public sector bodies. It is a working assumption of UK public sector management that the concept of the ‘customer’ can be applied to any public sector service agency or department; and this paper analyses how the UK government's revenue department, formerly titled the Inland Revenue (IR), re-characterised firstly taxpayers and latterly tax claimants as ‘customers’, rather than ‘users’, of IR services. This paper identifies some problems, dilemmas and ambiguities associated with this reconceptualisation in the context of an organisation that is predominantly a regulating department. Far from being merely a reclassification of the taxpayer as customer, the emerging discourse and associated practices of the IR were in part embedded in organisational change, including the merger with HM Customs and Excise to form the present-day HMRC. Thus this case analysis illustrates the limits of consumerism as a strategic tool of a government revenue department and raises wider questions for public management.     

Comparing empirical results of transaction avoidance rules studies

Empirical legal research in the United Kingdom (UK) and in The Netherlands (NL) has provided data on the extent to which the transaction avoidance rules (avoidance powers, actio Pauliana) generate practical problems. This paper's goal is to explore the similarities and differences of the data. To achieve this, existing empirical data found in Dutch and UK research are compared. From the comparison, it follows that the UK and NL share similar problems, that is there are no proceeds in a substantial number of cases in which the office-holder (or liquidator) encounters a suspect transaction, the majority of the disputes are conducted in the shadow of the law, proceeds are obtained more often from settlements than from proceedings, insufficient funds and evidence problems are experienced as major obstacles for successfully invoking the transaction avoidance rules, and a presumption or shift of burden of proof influences the outcome significantly. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experiential Learning – A Case Study of the Use of Computerised Stock Market Trading Simulation in Finance Education

Abstract

Finance is a popular programme of study in UK higher education despite it being a challenging subject that requires students to understand and apply complex and abstract mathematical models and academic theories. Educational simulation is an active learning method found to be useful in enhancing students’ learning experience, but there has been limited pedagogic research attention on its use in finance education within the UK. This paper, utilising an on-line survey, provides a snapshot of the current usage of finance-related simulations across the 97 UK universities offering finance programmes. The paper also reports the findings of a case study that offers insights into the effectiveness of introducing computerised simulation into a postgraduate finance course from both a student and tutor perspective. It highlights an enhancing learning experience for students through concrete experience and reflective observation, increasing their understanding of difficult and complex finance concepts.     

CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL REGULATION OF AUDITORS: (IN)STALLING THE EIGHTH DIRECTIVE IN THE UK

In 1984 the European Commission issued the Eighth Company Law Directive requiring each member State to ensure that its national rules met common standards for the education, training and qualification of statutory auditors (84/253/EEC; OJ 1984 L126/20). The Directive insisted that national governments take responsibility for the regulation of auditors, a requirement that clashed with the autonomy which many professional bodies believed they possessed. In this article we explore the processes through which the Eighth Directive on the regulation of auditors has been implemented in the UK. We argue that the Eighth Directive illuminates the effects of political and economic discourses on the development of accounting and auditing regulations and the protocols involved in installing such regulations into particular national contexts. The Eighth Directive represents a revealing moment in the shifts in political discourse (towards neo-liberalism) in the UK and the problems of reconciling new modes of economic and political thinking withinternationalregulatory programmes and institutions. Moreover, the implementation of the Eighth Directive in the UK cannot be comprehended outside of (i) an analysis of the problems the British Government has had in “managing” the accountancy profession in the UK and (ii), understanding the powerful image of the auditing industry as a key contributor to the UK economy.     

关于高校计算机基础课程分级教学改革与实践的探讨

针对学生中计算机基础参差不齐,需求不一的现实状况,提出并实施计算机基础分级教学改革,充分体现了因材施教、分类指导的原则。分级教学是一项系统工程,需要做大量的研究和准备工作。     

The Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme

The UK government conditions the pharmaceutical environment with a combination of micro and macro policies and pressures. Drug profits have been controlled since 1969 but it was only in May 1996 that the first report on these regulations were made available by government. The pharmaceutical price regulation scheme (PPRS) is obviously complex, synthesising price cap and profit regulation for example, but what makes matters more difficult is that the regulation has serious problems. The paper identifies and discusses the problems with PPRS regulation. The problems are: a lack of impact analysis; a lack of accountability; no agreement on what is meant by 'reasonable profits'; problems in apportioning R&D costs to UK sales; disincentives for international trade; whether the drug companies' accounts submitted to government are true and fair; and whether or not the regulation is legal according to EU law. By identifying and discussing these problems this paper aims to open the debate and provide an opportunity for improvements in the regulations.     

Profit Measurement and UK Accounting Standards: A Case of Increasing Disharmony in Relation to US GAAP and IASs

UK accounting practice differs from International Accounting Standards (IASs) particularly with regard to amortisation of goodwill, provision for deferred taxation and the accounting treatment of pension costs. Under the core standards programme of the IASC the IASs have emerged closer to US practice. This paper evaluates the profit of those UK companies reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1988 and 1994, spanning a period which saw the establishment of the ASB and the implementation of the IASC's comparability project. An increasing gap was found between the reported profit under UK accounting principles and that restated under US GAAP. The difference lay most frequently in accounting for goodwill, provision for deferred tax, and the accounting treatment of pension costs, with accounting for goodwill showing a particularly significant impact in 1994. Notwithstanding the introduction of FRS 10, an overall impression of increasing disharmony could continue to cause reconciliations to be required of UK companies seeking full listing on a US stock exchange, with consequent disadvantage relative to companies in other European countries seeking international capital in the US.     

A Perspective on UK Productivity Performance

The paper reviews recent UK productivity performance using insights from new growth economics and its embodiment in growth accounting techniques. The sources of the UK labour productivity gap are found to differ across countries; broad capital per worker plays a larger part with regard to France and Germany while innovation matters more compared with the USA. The role of incentive structures is examined and the importance of competition as an antidote to agency problems in UK firms is highlighted. Current UK policy is reviewed and the need to address government as well as market failures is stressed.     

Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*

This paper combines novel data on the time use, home-learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time Use Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown, and to gauge the extent to which changes in time use and learning practices during this period are likely to reinforce the already large gaps in educational attainment between children from poorer and better-off families. We find considerable heterogeneity in children's learning experiences – amount of time spent learning, activities undertaken during this time and availability of resources to support learning. Concerningly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this heterogeneity is strongly associated with family income and in some instances more so than before lockdown. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that any impacts of inequalities in time spent learning between poorer and richer children are likely to be compounded by inequalities not only in learning resources available at home, but also in those provided by schools.     

构建地方高等院校本科教学工作质量管理工程体系的思考

近年来,我国高等教育发展的主旋律是规模的扩张.从1999年开始到2005年,高等教育在学人数由不到800万人增加到2300万人,规模位居世界第一.在一个很短的时间内成功地实现了大众化教育的任务,走出了部分发达国家在高等教育大众化初期都曾经出现过的动荡怪圈,取得了显著的成就.但是规模持续扩大的同时,不少高等学校呈现出办学条件全面紧张的矛盾,部分高等学校的教育质量不能令人满意甚至出现了下降.针对这些问题,本文从影响内蒙古高等院校本科教学工作质量的因素入手,阐明质量工程的内涵,力图寻求与构建出一个能够包含影响地方高校本科教学工作质量的各主要因素指标,既能独立测评,又能综合评价与控制的质量管理工程体系,为地方高等院校提高本科教学工作质量,实现可持续发展提供决策的信息平台.     

Social Security Design in the UK: What is optimal?

This paper uses a simple model of how households at different points on the income distribution make decisions about saving and labour supply to illustrate some of the problems government faces in designing social security systems. We show simulation results, which highlight the costs and benefits of alternative pension and income support regimes, and analyse what is happening in the UK in the light of the results.     

Benchmarking in the Dutch Waste-Water Treatment Sector

The Dutch water boards have recently completed a performance measurement and evaluation project for waste-water treatment. This project was intended to strengthen the boards’ accountability to their stakeholders and to identify starting points for performance improvement. The Balanced Scorecard was used as a framework to develop a broad set of performance indicators. This article describes the benchmarking project and how the Dutch water boards intend to use the results to improve performance. Finally, the Dutch project is compared with the UK’s Best Value project.     

Sustainable Transport Policy: The Contribution from Behavioural Scientists

Publication of the UK Government's White Paper on Transport, in July 1998, has raised public awareness of the problems associated with widespread car use. The authors argue that these problems, which largely result from the aggregated choices and behaviour of many individual car uses, could be mitigated if the main determinants of car use and the underlying behavioural mechanisms were better understood. This article examines six strategies for changing social behaviour, and some important conditions for reducing car use. Examples are presented of how the insights gained can be applied in practice.     

Governance,tax and folk tales

This paper develops a particular narratological approach to analyse a common category of narratives: individuals’ accounts of their organization’s context and purpose. In two phases of interview research with 45 senior UK accounting professionals (tax officials, tax advisors to, and tax directors of, multinational companies) we focus on a pivotal period in the governance of UK taxation. We advocate analysing what ordinarily could be called ‘real world’ narratives about this context (‘tax tales’) as if they were folk tales. This approach draws on an influential analysis of folk tales by Propp. Our theoretical contribution is to show how features of strong or dominant plots, of the kind that structure folk tales, also help accounting professionals to make sense of this complex governance environment. This helps us understand personal projects of sense making in a context that is technically, legally and morally complex and has implications for governance, for policy, and for accounting as a professional project.     

Horizontal Equity and the Taxation of Employed and Self-Employed Workers

The schedular system of income tax in the UK frequently comes under attack, not least in relation to the distinctions it draws between the tax treatment of the employed and the self-employed. However, on examination, it appears that non-schedular systems of taxation share both these distinctions and the difficulties that arise from them, albeit to varying degrees. The division between employed and self-employed is also problematic for social security systems. These difficulties are found, to a greater or lesser extent, in all the jurisdictions studied by the authors. It may be argued that all or some of the tax and social security differences are justified by fundamental economic and legal differences between the nature of employment and self-employment relationships. This may be true where the relationships compared are unambiguously, on the one hand, employment and, on the other, self-employment. However, there have always been non-standard relationships that combine characteristics of both these broad categories. This grey area appears to be increasing with changing work patterns. Consequently, the simple dichotomous system adopted by the UK tax and social security systems has come under pressure. This article considers the problems arising from this situation and some of the ideas that have been put forward to deal with them. JEL classification: H24, K34.     

The protective role of saving: Bayesian analysis of British panel data

We explore whether a protective role for savings against future financial hardship exists using household level panel data for a nationally representative sample of UK households. We jointly model the incidence and extent of financial problems, using a dynamic two-part approach allowing different data-generating processes for experiencing financial hardship and the extent of financial hardship experienced. Our results show that: (i) saving on a regular basis mitigates against the likelihood of experiencing, as well as the number of, future financial problems; (ii) state dependence in financial problems exists; (iii) interdependence exists between financial problems and housing costs, with higher housing costs associated with an increased probability of experiencing financial hardship.     

Costs,outputs and outcomes in school PFI contracts and the significance of project size

This article examines operational Private Finance Initiative (PFI) school projects and reports the experiences of UK headteachers. It considers the impact of project size on value for money (VFM). Headteachers involved in small projects are more satisfied with costs than those involved in large projects, but headteachers involved in larger projects are more satisfied with affordability. Generally, heads are more satisfied with the buildings than with the services. The authors question the government's recent policy changes to increase the size of PFI projects.     

Changing management roles in the Scottish NHS: implications for management learning and development

The UK government's austerity means that public service providers, such as the National Health Service (NHS), are looking for efficiencies from service integration and collaborative working. This paper highlights how NHS (Scotland) management is coping with these changes and how the role of the manager and the nature of management development is being transformed. New forms and processes of management learning and development are needed for collaborative partnership working in multi-agency public service environments.