LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE
KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
A wiki-Webquest
Carmen-Pilar Martí-Ballester, Soledad Moya-Gutiérrez
Business Economics Department, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Diego Prior-Jiménez
Business Economics Department, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Keywords: WebQuest, Wiki, Social Accounting, European Credits Transfer System, Financial reports.
Abstract: This paper examines how new communication and collaboration technologies can influence university
students learning process for the area of accounting and specifically for social accounting. Students should
be able to know and understand that companies’ reports must provide not only financial but also social
information as a necessary complement to the first. Analysts are taking into consideration social issues
when valuing companies and corporate governance, human rights or environmental behaviours have
become key factors for investment decisions. In a general way, social accounting may be defined as the
framework which allows businesses to account for their impact on society. For the Institute of Social and
Ethical Accountability (1999), the terms social and ethical are taken together to refer to the organisational
and behavioural systems within the organisation, and their direct and indirect impact on organisational
activities with the stakeholders.
1 INTRODUCTION
Dodge (1997) defines a WebQuest as being a guided
research activity, in which all or a large amount of
the information that students use is obtained from
the Internet. WebQuests are designed in order for
students to make the most of the time by focusing on
using information more than looking for it, and
generating new knowledge through critical
reasoning on different levels of analysis, synthesis
and evaluation, as Dodge (2001) and Richards
(2005) suggest. The possibilities offered by the
WebQuest model in the development of student
skills and abilities has raised interest among
professors, who have implanted the method on
different educational levels and in different areas
(Donovan (2005), Sautter et al (2000) and Long and
Stevens (2004) among others) and also among
academics, who have analysed the pedagogical
advantages of using said model and the development
of its implantation process (Kanuka et al (2007),
Zheng et al (2007), Allan and Street (2007) and Lim
(2004)).
A large number of these studies coincide in
affirming that the WebQuest model can (1) promote
critical reasoning in students, as the WebQuest
activity incorporates elements of reflection to be
learned from, making it possible to compare,
contrast and synthesise knowledge to construct new
understandings; (2) facilitate the application of
knowledge, as the proposed activity is developed in
a setting that interests the students and is related
with the problems that could arise in the real world;
and (3) develop collaborative skills during the
learning process as they require students to work in
groups.
In this sense, different authors such as Johnson and
Johnson (1990), Slavin (1992) and Biggs (2003),
indicate that collaborative work generates positive
effects on the students forming a group. According
to Allan and Street (2007) collaborative work
promotes student autonomy, making them
responsible for carrying out one part of the project,
as a contribution to the proposed discussion of the
subject once the ideas and results have been pooled
together. This, in turn, provides students with greater
187
Martí-Ballester C., Moya-Gutiérrez S. and Prior-Jiménez D. (2009).
LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY - A wiki-Webquest.
In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 186-191
DOI: 10.5220/0001857301860191
Copyright
c
SciTePress
fluency in the use of economic language and gets
them used to working as a team, a work method that
has been adopted by a large number of companies to
deal with the complex problems that can arise in the
kind of dynamic but uncertain environment that is so
typical of a globalised economy.
However, according to Harrer et al (2006), a
professor that wishes to implant a methodology
based on collaborative work is faced by two
challenges: controlling the time available to prepare
the material and dealing with students’ doubts, as
well as examining and evaluating students’
behaviour within the work group. To cope with this
latter difficulty, we propose the use of Wiki
technology. Dobrockey (2006) defines the Wiki as a
web application that enables the user to create pages
and/or edit the content of those that already exist,
which favours the exchange and generation of ideas,
and therefore, collaborative/cooperative work. The
flexibility and ease of use offered by this tool has led
to its incorporation in the business world, as shown
by Dobrockey (2006) and Rahman (2006), as well as
its application to education, as can be inferred from
Parslow (2005). In this latter case, its implantation
enables the professor to observe and revise the
changes made and improvements incorporated by
each of the students, and also to refine the content of
the same by correcting any detected errors. So, Wiki
technology is configured as a tool that enables the
teacher (1) to follow the evolution of the acquisition
and generation of the knowledge of the group and of
each of its members and (2) to efficiently evaluate
each student in terms of group and individual work
done. Also, from the student’s point of view, the use
of this application leads to the development of
teamwork skills, favouring adaptation to the
business environment.
While exploiting the advantages offered by each
model for the way students acquire skills and are
evaluated, we shall now design and implement a
WebQuest and a Wiki for the financial accountancy
course taught in the first year of the Company
Management and Administration Degree at the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Its aim
will for the students (1) to become aware of the
importance of financial accountancy and annual
accounts as elements of information on the
transactions the company makes with its
environment, within the context of corporate social
responsibility, (2) to know how to interpret and
evaluate the information that is provided and (3) to
learn to use it to make decisions.
To optimise the aforementioned development of
skills and abilities, as shown by Lim (2004), the
WebQuest needs to be well designed. In this sense,
Dodge (1997) and Zheng et al (2007) indicate that
the WebQuest should be structured into at least six
parts: (1) introduction, (2) task, (3) sources of
information, (4) description of the process, (5)
evaluation of the result and (6) conclusion.
However, Young and Wilson (2002) and Allan and
Street (2007) propose an adaptation of the traditional
WebQuest structure in which an extra level is added.
In said level, each group of students presents its
other colleagues with the results it obtained,
generating knowledge feedback and the exchange of
ideas, which will help the professor to analyse the
class as a group, and also each student’s attitude
within the class, and to make comparisons between
groups. Additionally, in our proposal we added
another level that consists of incorporating a Wiki
application to the WebQuest to enable us to monitor
each student’s individual work.
2 DESIGNING THE WEBQUEST
The aim of the WebQuest we are proposing is to
generate generic skills among first year students on
the Company Management and Administration
degree course, which will enable them to analyse
and synthesise accountancy and ethical information,
put the theoretical knowledge they have acquired
throughout the course into practice, acquire
computer skills that will familiarise themselves with
the information technologies used in the business
environment, acquire skills for working
autonomously and develop the social skills needed
to work as a part of a team.
In order to achieve said objectives, we propose the
following WebQuest titled “Do we invest in
destruction or in sustainable companies?” which we
structure into five parts.
2.1 Introduction
In the introduction section we present the initial
problem that students have to solve. To do this, we
show the context in which the students are going to
work, ensuring that we present a scenario that is in
keeping with the realities of the business world in
order to motivate the students. So, we propose a
practical exercise to the students that simulates the
kind of professional work they would encounter if
they were employed by a real-life consultancy
office, a pension fund management company or an
investment management company.
To do so, we propose the following scenario:
The manager of an investment management
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
188
company decides to increase the range of products it
offers and to provide its clients with a new product
that is in increasingly greater demand: a socially
responsible investment fund. However, in order to
manage the fund efficiently, the solicitor needs to
select a combination of titles that optimise the
portfolio’s trinomial of profitability-risk-social
responsibility.
To do so, an Ethics Commission is constituted for
the fund, mainly made up of independent people that
are related due to experience or proximity to the
fund’s principles, which include professors from the
UAB’s Department of Company Economy. This
commission is responsible for determining the
values or instruments, whose companies are adjusted
to the criteria established in the aforementioned
principles. From among these values, the Managing
Company will select those that optimise the
profitability-risk binomial of its portfolio.
Given that there is such a high number of Spanish
companies that need to be evaluated, the Ethics
Commission has asked the students studying
Financial Accountancy as part of the Company
Management and Administration and Law and the
Company Management and Administration degree
courses to help them make a report recommending
the Spanish companies in which they could invest
the monies in the fund in consideration of their
business behaviour.
Are Spanish companies socially responsible?
2.2 Task
In this section, we comment on the work that the
students have to present following the research
proposed in our WebQuest. In this case, the idea is
to make a report on corporate responsibility and an
oral PowerPoint presentation to be given to their
classmates. We believe it is important for the
students to have prior knowledge of the final product
of the WebQuest, whose content is described as
follows:
“The Financial Accountancy students, in
commitment to society, the environment and ethical
behaviour of companies, will provide their
assistance to the Ethics Commission, and will make
a report that evaluates whether Spanish companies
carry out their activity in an ethical manner on the
basis of the criteria of social, environmental and
legal responsibility, and in respect of the social
rights established in the ethical principles of the
funds to be provided by the managing company
itself.
So, the Ethics Commission will supply us with a
directory of Spanish companies compiled by
ESADE that groups companies into sectors,
providing legal information in relation to their
annual accounts, i.e. Balance Statement, Profits and
Losses Account and Annual Report, as well as
voluntary information relating to social
responsibility, environmental reports and
sustainability reports supplied by a large number of
companies in the sector.
The students will make a group report, and will
provide it in writing and present it in public before
their colleagues, who will be able to ask questions
and discuss the comments made. To do this, they
should consult the Web, use the Wiki application to
make the report, and make a PowerPoint
presentation of the report.”
2.3 Process
This section provides a detailed description of the
preliminary steps to be followed by the students
when preparing the report, and others related to the
creation of the report on corporate responsibility and
the presentation of the results. So, first, the work
groups will be formed. In this sense, the number of
students in each group needs to be determined, as
well as the criteria for forming these groups.
With respect to the first issue, many academics,
including Rue (2004) and Quinquer (1995) agree in
saying that the perfect size of a group should be
between two and four students, as this will promote
discussion and the exchange of ideas without any of
the members of the group taking a passive role.
Given that the group to which the work is being
proposed has a large number of enrolled students,
groups of four will be used, which will help the
professor to supervise the process.
As for the criteria for forming groups, Alfonseca et
al (2006) comment that the mechanism for forming
groups could influence their learning process. So,
there are two possibilities: (1) let the students form
their own groups, which as suggested by Johnson
and Johnson (1975) would lead to the formation of
homogeneous groups and (2) for the professor(s) to
decide on the people who will go into each group
and randomly form homogenous and/or
heterogeneous groups.
Alfonseca et al (2006) go for the first option because
the literature supports the hypothesis that students
tend to form groups in accordance with similar
characteristics and skills, which could favour the
learning process. However, when students obtain
their degrees and are incorporated into private
companies, the chances are that the company’s
LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY - A wiki-Webquest
189
employees will form a heterogeneous group in terms
of skills and characteristics, which would imply the
student having to integrate and adapt to the new
situation if he or she wants to stay on in the job. So,
to determine which work environment is most
adequate, we apply each of the options to a large-
group. In large-group A, the students voluntarily
form groups in order to test the hypothesis made by
Johnson and Johnson (1975) and Alfonseca et al
(2006). In large-group B, the professors make the
group classification by applying such criteria as
town of origin, entrance mark, sex and age
differences. The result of this experiment could be of
major relevance for human resources departments
when selecting employees.
After that, the details of the calendar for carrying out
the project and holding meetings with the professor
are drafted. Then the structure of the corporate
responsibility report is specified, showing the
content of each section where reference should also
be made to the sources from which the data was
obtained.
In this sense, the report is made up of five parts: (1)
Introduction, which specifies the aim of the report
and critically comments on the operative principles
around which the fund’s ethical principles are
constructed, a link to which will be provided on the
website; (2) Indicators, for which guiding values are
given to make it possible to determine whether a
company complies with what is established by the
fund’s ethical principles by taking as a reference the
social, environmental and economic indicators
contained in the Guide for the Creation of
Sustainability Reports (GRI) to which a link is
provided in the WebQuest; Also in this section and
for each indicator, participants must comment on
whether said information is obligatory or not and, if
it is, where these regulations are given (3) Strategic
map of the stakeholders, where the students should
examine the information given by the company
regarding its socially responsible activity and the
options of the different stakeholders regarding the
operative actions carried out by the company in
order to determine whether it uses social corporate
responsibility as a marketing strategy or whether it is
a company value that is integrated in the company’s
mission; (4) Excluding criteria, where it is
determined whether the company invests in other
companies whose activity is injurious to human life,
fails to respect human rights, promotes the
destruction of peoples, deteriorates the environment,
is damaging to public health, or does not act in
accordance with ethical principles; (5) Evaluative
criteria, where the student must examine whether the
company being analysed invests in companies that
show socially responsible behaviour in accordance
with the established ethical principles; (6)
Conclusion, where the students must recommend
investment or not in the analysed company and
justify this verdict.
To produce the aforementioned report, the students
should consult legal information, i.e. Balance
Statement, Profits and Losses Account and Annual
Report, along with voluntary information provided
by the companies in the form of social,
environmental and sustainability reports. However,
companies might manipulate their reports of results
and voluntary reports on corporate social
responsibility in order to cover up irresponsible or
illegal behaviour. To deal with this, in addition to
the information provided either voluntarily or under
obligation by the company, the students should also
use other sources of information. In this case, we
propose making a search of a base of magazines in
which the students must seek out journalistic articles
providing information about the company.
So, each step implies exploratory work whose
objective is to construct knowledge through critical
reasoning regarding the questions being asked
regarding the structure of the company’s accounts,
economy, finance and corporate responsibility. To
do this, comments are established that are designed
to act as “conceptual scaffolding”, which help guide
the students through the execution of the project.
This section also details the way in which the report
should be presented. In this sense, students are told
that the report should contain no more than 20
pages, using 1.5 spacing, size 12 fonts in Times New
Roman, margins of 2.5 cm and numbered pages. The
first page must show the name of the company being
analysed, the details of the students in the group
(surnames, names and enrolment group), and the
dates when the work was completed and handed in.
2.4 Evaluation
This section contains the items that are evaluated
and the scores that are given to each. The idea is to
evaluate the skills acquired by the student in the
proposed learning process. To do this, we
distinguish between skills of a transversal nature that
could be applied to many other subjects but which
are no less important because of that, and specific
skills related to the knowledge being worked upon
here.
Among transversal skills we could cite:
a) critical reasoning,
b) good communication,
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
190
c) autonomy
d) creativity.
As specific skills involving the proposed subject we
have:
a) basic knowledge of the field of study
b) capacity for analysis and synthesis,
c) capacity to put knowledge into practice,
d) teamwork
e) decision making
To evaluate how students acquire skills, Baker
(2008) compares different instruments showing that
they are all reliable. However, said author focuses
only on the joint evaluation of the group without
taking into consideration the individual work done
by each student within the same. Therefore, in the
present work we evaluate the skills acquired by the
students, assessing:
(1) the individual work done by each member of the
group, which we observe by analysing the Wiki
page. This enables us to evaluate the knowledge
acquired by the students, their capacity for analysis
and synthesis, their autonomy, their capacity to put
knowledge into practice and their critical reasoning.
(2) the work done by the group, where we take into
account punctuality when respecting hand-in dates,
and the quality and originality of the work. This also
enables us to evaluate the aforementioned skills,
teamwork and decision making.
(3) the oral presentation both to the tutor and to the
other participants. On the basis of the oral
presentation we will evaluate the participants’
communication skills both individually and as a
group, as well as their capacity to adjust their
presentation to a certain time and structure.
The evaluation will be marked from 1 to 4 for each
of the three proposed sections.
2.5 Conclusion
After doing the task that we proposed, the students
will be able to analyse and synthesize a company’s
the financial-economic-accountant information. The
students will also be familiar with the accounting
terminology, will know some databases which
contain companies accounting information, will be
able to put their knowledge into practice through
critical thinking and will be able to coordinate
themselves to work as a team and will have to skills
for explaining their work in public. Besides, the
students will be able to make decisions on where
they could invest on the basis of companies’ the
corporate and social behaviour, will be able to
skilfully handle the tools pertaining to the
knowledge society to elaborate reports, will solve
moral dilemmas that could arise in the business
environment and will get into research skills.
Finally, they will have abilities to do research on
corporate social responsibility. That’s the reason
why we challenge them to think about important
questions in accounting area: Do you think that the
companies should include corporate social
responsibility’s information in their annual reports?
How could the companies include this information?
3 PRODUCTION OF REPORT
USING WIKI APPLICATION
The production of the report on corporate
responsibility is made using the Wiki application, as
this offers advantages through being easy to make
and use, and enables the professor to control and
modify the content of the same. Access to said
application is made via the WebQuest, via a link in
the “Process” section.
So, each work group will have one Wiki consisting
of four parts: (1) project page, where the corporate
responsibility report will be made following the
criteria established in the fund’s ethical principles,
(2) discussion, a space to be used by students to
introduce their comments in relation to compliance
or non-compliance with the excluding and
evaluative criteria, as well as what they have found
in journalistic articles and judicial sentences; (3)
source or edition code, which makes it possible to
make modifications to the project and discussion
pages and (4) history, which enables the professor to
monitor the individual work done by each member
of the group and observe the development of the
members of the same.
Said report will then be presented in writing in
accordance with the aforementioned rules for
delivery.
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we propose the use of two tools
pertaining to the knowledge society, namely a
WebQuest and Wikis, to promote innovation and
progress in the knowledge university students have
of the financial and social accounting of companies
and their responsibility towards society. Raising
student awareness of issues of corporate social
responsibility seems to us to be a fundamental part
of their human and ethical training, and for
preparing them for their future careers. Furthermore,
LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY - A wiki-Webquest
191
the use of the WebQuest enables students to become
actively involved in the learning process, acquiring
skills, competences and abilities that will be of use
when they complete their studies and go into
employment. When the proposed activity is
completed, the students will have become familiar
with ways of handling the accountancy reports
provided by companies, developing a sophisticated
level of knowledge in the area of accountancy,
generating ideas and knowledge as a result of the
experience, and developing social skills and
capacities as a consequence of the interaction
between the members of the work group. They will
also be familiarised with information technologies,
which are fully integrated in the business
environment they will be joining in the immediate
future. This methodology also combines a web
environment with other sources of knowledge
beyond the traditional ones that students can use and
which are also detailed in the WebQuest, which
enables them to broaden their horizons and come
into early contact with tools that will be of great use
to them in the future.
REFERENCES
Allan, J y Street, M. (2007): The quest for deeper learning:
an investigation into the impact of a Knowledge-
pooling WebQuest in primary initial teacher training,
British Journal of Educational Technology, 38, 6,
1102-1112.
Afonseca, E.; Carro, R.M.; Martín, E.; Ortigosa, A. y
Paredes, P. (2006): The impact of learning styles on
student grouping for collaborative learning: a case
study. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction,
16, 3-4, 377-401.
Baker, D.F. (2008): Peer Assessment in Small Groups: A
Comparison of Methods. Journal of Management
Education, 32, 2, 183-209.
Biggs, J. (2003): Teaching for quality learning at
university (2nd ed.). Buckingham, UK: The Society
for Research into Higher Education and Open
University Press.
Dobrockey, L.P. (2006): Hacia la library 2.0: blogs, rss y
wikis. El profesional de la información, 16, 2, 138-
142.
Dodge; B. (1995): WebQuests: a technique for Internet-
based learning. Distance Educator, 1, 10-13.
Dodge, B. (1997): Some thoughts about WebQuests.
Retreived 20 June 2008, from
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html.
Dodge, B. (2001): Focus: five rules for writing a great
WebQuest. Learning and Leading with Technology,
28, 6-9.
Donovan, O.M. (2005): The Carbohydrate Quandary:
Achieving Health Literacy Through an
Interdisciplinary WebQuest. Journal of School Health,
75, 9, 359-362.
Harrer, A.; McLaren, B.M.; Walker, E.; Bollen, L. y
Sewall, J. (2006): Creating cognitive tutors for
collaborative learning: steps toward realization. User
Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 16, 3-4, 175-
209.
Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, R.P. (1975): Learning
Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. Pearson
Education.
Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, R.T. (1990): Cooperative
learning and achievement. In: S. Sharan (ed.)
Cooperative Learning: Theory and Research, Praeger,
New York.
Kanuka, H.; Rourke, L. y Laflamme, E. (2007): The
influence of instructional methods on the quality of
online discussion. British Journal of Educational
Technology, 38, 2, 260-271.
Lim, B.R. (2004): Challenges and issues in designing
inquiry on the web. British Journal of Educational
Technology, 35, 5, 627-643.
Long, J.D. y Stevens, K.R. (2004): Using Technology to
promote sefl-Efficacy for Healthy Eating in
Adolescents. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 36, 2,
134-139.
Parslow, G.R. (2005): Multimedia in Biochemestry and
Molecular Biology Education. Commentary: Wiki:
The Fast Way to Collaborative Authoring, 33, 5, 371.
Quinquer, D. (1995): El treball cooperatiu en ciències
socials, una estratègia pera la gestió social de l’aula»,
L’Avenç, 189: 71-72.
Rahman, M. (2006): Wiki Technology as a “Free”
collaborative tool within an organizational setting.
Information Systems Management, 23, 4, 59-66.
Richards, C. (2005): The design of effective ICT-
supported learning activities: exemplary models,
changing requirements, and new possibilities.
Language, Learning and Technology, 9, 1, 60-79.
Rué, J. (2004): El desenvolupament d’unitats de
programació mitjançant l’organització cooperativa del
treball dels alumnes. Bellaterra: UAB-IDES.
Sautter, E.T.; Pratt, E.R. y Shanahan, K.J. (2000): The
Marketing WebQuest: An Internet Based
Experimental Learning Tool. Marketing Education
Review, 10, 1, 47-55.
Slavin, R.E. (1992): When and why does cooperative
learning increase achievement? Theoretical and
empirical perspectives. In: Hertz-Lazarowitz, R.,
Miller, N. (eds.) Interaction in cooperative groups: The
theoretical anatomy of group learning, pp. 145–173.
Cambridge University Press, New York.
Young, D. and Wilson, B. (2002): WebQuest for reflection
and conceptual change: variations on a popular model
for guided inquiry. World Conference on Educational
Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications,
2002, 1, 2116-2121.
Zheng, R; Perez, J; Williamson, J. y Flygare, J. (2007):
WebQuests as perceived by teachers: implications for
online teaching and learning. Journal of Computer
Assisted Learning, OnlineEarly Articles.
CSEDU 2009 - International Conference on Computer Supported Education
192