Teaching and learning accounting with overseas students

International students have flowed into a first-year postgraduate accounting subject at an Australia university over the past five to six years. Many are ill prepared for the student-centred learning strategies developed for them by the staff, strategies that emphasise inquiry, debate and analysis. Many prefer to memorise and reproduce material from lecture notes and similar basic material. Failure rates have risen, and many of those international students who eventually pass and go on to gain permanent residence find it hard to get work in accounting environments. Local students are now a minority in the subject. They are well adapted to student-centred learning and some resent the change in learning culture that the newcomers expect the staff to adopt.