STUDENT CENTRED LEARNING:
STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES
Maslina Mahdzan
Mazlina Mustapha
Badriyah Bt Minai
International Conference
on Life Long Learning 2011
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OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION:
 Background
of the study
 Literature review
 Research objectives
 Research Method
 Results
 Conclusion
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BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Higher education is undergoing changes >>> challenges
to ensure that the students manage to get good jobs after
graduating from the university and manage to fulfill the
requirements set by their employers.
Question the education system >>> for failing to produce
quality and employable graduates.
Efforts are taken to revise and improve the curriculum, as
well as the teaching and learning methods used at the
universities (Arko-Cobbah, 2004).
Teacher Centered Learning (TCL) approach, is not
adequate to prepare the students to face the job market
(Kivela, 2005 ).
A new approach which centered on students in education
is considered. This approach is called Student Centered
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Learning (SCL)
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BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Dato’ Mohamed Khaled Nordin in his mandate in 2009 claimed that
to conduct courses solely using lecture (TCL) may not be appropriate
anymore for certain courses and suggest that SCL approach be
applied in the learning process so that students can enhance their
thinking skill and become more innovative (Nordin, 2009).
Thus, SCL is used in Malaysian classrooms, especially at
universities.
However, prior studies claimed that initial reactions from most
students show a mixture of confusion, shock and
overconfidence (Walker et al., 1996). Therefore, this study is
conducted to examine the students perception of SCL.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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SCL is the most innovative instructional approach >>aims to
enhance students’ application of knowledge, problem solving skills,
higher-order thinking, and self-directed learning skills (Hung, 2009).
SCL is a learning strategy that demands the students work both in
groups and individually to explore problems and become active
knowledge worker than passive recipients of knowledge >>>
students construct their learning by actively seeking their own
information (Arko-Cobbah, 2004).
Tsou et al.(2009) find that, students are more active in raising
questions, expressing their opinions, and are more eager to discuss
the things they do not know
SCL approach promotes reactions, arouses questions, and allows
the sharing of resources and knowledge in a group setting (Tseng et
al., 2008).
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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SCL approach helps to develop students’ abilities in data
collection, analysis, summary and understanding. >>> gives them
more confidence in oral presentations (Tsou et al. 2009) )
>>>opportunity to develop their communication skill.
Horne et al. (2007) find that SCL encourages self-awareness,
confidence, self-direction and independent learning skills.
Students are encouraged to develop their own lenses through
which to view the world and be able to argue and defend their
views with confidence (Moustakim, 2007).
SCL approach is also claimed to help students to have positive
attitudes towards lifelong learning in the future(Tseng et al. 2008).
Some students indicated that they became better at validating the
usefulness of the source (Tiwari, Chan, Wong, Chui & Patel, 2006),
because they have chance to develop their critical thinking and
deep understanding of the subject given to them. However, there
are also study which claimed that students may show a mixture of
confusion, shock and overconfidence in the initial stage (Walker et
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al., 1996).
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
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This study attempts to examine the students’
perception on usage of SCL approach in
accounting program.
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RESEARCH METHOD
Data : primary data >> questionnaire
 Distributed to final year accounting students in
one of the public universities in Malaysia.
 Data analysis: t-test, ANOVA.
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RESULTS
 Descriptive
statistics:
 Gender:
Female (74.8%) and Male (25.2%)
 Race: Malays (52.8%), Chinese (39.4%) and
Indian (4,7%)
 Average age : 23 years old
 CGPA range from 2.6 to 4.0
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RESULTS
 Students’
awareness of SCL: Table 1
 Students’ perception towards SCL: Table 2
 Independent t-test:
 Male
and Female: significant
 High achiever and low achiever: insignificant
 ANOVA:
Race: significant
Chinese students and Malay students (p<0.01)
 Chinese students and Other students (p < 0.02)
 Chinese students have the lowest SCL mean score
among the groups.
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CONCLUSIONS
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The purpose of this study is to examine the students’
perspective on SCL in accounting program.
Overall, the students appear to indicate that SCL approach
is suitable with their style of learning as student where SCL
would provide a classroom atmosphere of exploring and
debating new ideas and can link among various subjects.
In addition, they feel that SCL enhance their decision
making skills and critical thinking skills, as well as improve
their understanding.
However, based on the results, possibly more exposure and
information need to be given to the students. Time is also
an important factor for them to adjust to the new learning
environment.
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Thank you for your attention!!!
Any comment/feedback : mazlina05@gmail.com
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