Undergraduate accounting students’ instructional preferences in Australia and Zimbabwe: A comparative study

This study examines the instructional preferences exhibited by students in an Australian and Zimbabwean setting, and how cultural conditioning can reflect in the instructional design choice. Using graphical and textual presentations, an experiment with three instructional designs and 217 undergraduate students, this study empirically examines student understanding of financial accounting in the two countries. Student’s performance scores and reported mental effort ratings were used to determine the instructional preference. The findings of this comparative study show that Australian accounting students prefer graph and text designs aligned with a low power distance while Zimbabwean students prefer graphical and textual designs associated with a high power distance. The results suggest that different people see the world in different ways and demands educators to deliver culturally sensitive and culturally adaptive accounting instructional material.