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Effect of Jigsaw Learning Strategy on Students’ Understanding of Partnership Accounting in Nigerian Polytechnics

Abstract

Partnership accounting is an important area of financial accounting that requires students to understand and apply several interrelated concepts, including partnership formation, appropriation of profits and losses, admission and retirement of partners, goodwill, revaluation of assets and liabilities, dissolution, and settlement of partnership accounts. However, students may experience difficulties understanding partnership accounting because many of its topics involve multiple accounting procedures, calculations, adjustments, and principles that must be applied simultaneously. The Jigsaw Learning Strategy provides a cooperative learning approach in which students are organized into groups, assigned different aspects of a learning task, develop expertise in their assigned areas, and subsequently teach or explain their areas of expertise to other group members. This approach may encourage active participation, peer explanation, collaborative problem-solving, and deeper processing of accounting concepts. Against this background, this study investigates the effect of the Jigsaw Learning Strategy on students' understanding of partnership accounting in Nigerian polytechnics. The study will be anchored on Social Interdependence Theory, Social Constructivist Learning Theory, and Cognitive Learning Theory. Social Interdependence Theory emphasizes positive interdependence, individual accountability, group interaction, and collaborative achievement, which are central to the Jigsaw Learning Strategy. Social Constructivist Learning Theory emphasizes the development of knowledge through interaction, dialogue, peer explanation, and collaborative learning experiences. Cognitive Learning Theory explains how students acquire, organize, process, store, and retrieve information and how explaining concepts to others may strengthen conceptual understanding. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how the Jigsaw Learning Strategy may influence students' understanding of partnership accounting. The study will adopt a quantitative quasi-experimental research design. The study population will comprise accounting education students enrolled in selected public polytechnics across Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique will be used to select geopolitical zones, states, polytechnics, departments, levels of study, classes, and eligible accounting education students. The Jigsaw Learning Strategy will be assessed using indicators such as heterogeneous group formation, assignment of specific partnership accounting topics, expert-group activities, home-group activities, individual preparation, peer teaching, peer explanation, collaborative problem-solving, group discussion, questioning, clarification of difficult concepts, sharing of accounting procedures, individual accountability, positive interdependence, rotation of learning roles, group presentation, peer feedback, lecturer facilitation, group summarization, case-based activities, practical accounting exercises, progressive task difficulty, individual assessment, group assessment, reflection on group learning, and opportunities for students to explain partnership accounting procedures to their peers. Students' understanding of partnership accounting will be assessed using indicators such as understanding of partnership concepts, partnership agreement, partnership formation, capital accounts, current accounts, profit and loss appropriation, interest on capital, interest on drawings, partners' salaries and commissions, profit-sharing ratios, changes in profit-sharing ratios, admission of a new partner, retirement of a partner, death of a partner, goodwill valuation, treatment of goodwill, revaluation of assets and liabilities, accumulated profits and losses, adjustment of partners' capital accounts, dissolution of partnership, realization accounts, settlement of partners' accounts, interpretation of partnership accounting information, application of accounting principles to partnership transactions, ability to explain partnership accounting procedures, ability to solve partnership accounting problems, ability to distinguish between related partnership accounting treatments, and ability to apply partnership accounting knowledge to unfamiliar situations. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, standardized partnership accounting understanding tests, practical accounting exercises, scenario-based questions, partnership accounting case studies, observation checklists, competency-based assessment rubrics, group-learning records, and pre-test and post-test assessments. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize students' demographic and academic characteristics, exposure to the Jigsaw Learning Strategy, learning experiences, and levels of partnership accounting understanding. Inferential statistical techniques, including paired and independent t-tests, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis where appropriate, will be used to determine the effect of the Jigsaw Learning Strategy on students' understanding of partnership accounting. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, students' partnership accounting understanding scores before and after exposure to the Jigsaw Learning Strategy may be compared with those of a control group receiving conventional accounting instruction to determine changes associated with the intervention. Diagnostic tests will also be conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and robustness of the findings. The study is expected to find that the Jigsaw Learning Strategy has a significant positive effect on students' understanding of partnership accounting in Nigerian polytechnics. Students exposed to the strategy are expected to demonstrate stronger conceptual understanding and improved ability to apply partnership accounting principles than students taught through conventional instructional methods. Assigning students different partnership accounting topics may allow them to develop focused understanding before sharing their knowledge with their home groups. Expert-group discussions may enable students to examine specific topics such as admission, retirement, goodwill, revaluation, or dissolution in greater depth. Peer teaching may strengthen understanding because students are required to explain accounting principles and procedures in their own words. Students receiving explanations from peers may also encounter alternative ways of interpreting difficult partnership accounting concepts. Collaborative problem-solving may help students connect individual accounting procedures and understand how different partnership adjustments affect partners' capital and current accounts. Individual accountability may encourage each student to prepare adequately before participating in group activities. Group discussions may provide opportunities for students to identify misconceptions, ask questions, compare solutions, and clarify difficult calculations. Case-based activities may help students connect partnership accounting principles with realistic business situations. Repeated peer explanation and progressive problem-solving may strengthen students' ability to apply partnership accounting knowledge to unfamiliar problems. However, unequal participation, dominant group members, inadequate preparation, large class sizes, limited instructional time, weak communication skills, students' insufficient prior accounting knowledge, ineffective group composition, and inadequate lecturer facilitation may reduce the effectiveness of the strategy. The study therefore expects well-structured, properly facilitated, participatory, and individually accountable Jigsaw Learning activities to contribute significantly to improved understanding of partnership accounting among accounting education students in Nigerian polytechnics. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on Jigsaw Learning Strategy, partnership accounting, cooperative learning, social interdependence, social constructivist learning, cognitive learning, peer teaching, collaborative learning, accounting education, conceptual understanding, financial accounting instruction, practical accounting education, accounting pedagogy, accounting skills development, and polytechnic education in Nigeria. The findings will provide useful information to the National Board for Technical Education, polytechnics, accounting education departments, accounting educators, curriculum developers, professional accounting bodies, and policymakers regarding strategies for improving students' understanding of partnership accounting. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for integrating the Jigsaw Learning Strategy into partnership accounting instruction, training accounting educators in cooperative-learning techniques, developing structured expert-group and home-group activities, incorporating peer teaching into difficult partnership accounting topics, using realistic partnership accounting cases and practical exercises, strengthening individual accountability within cooperative groups, providing appropriate lecturer facilitation and feedback, developing competency-based assessments of partnership accounting understanding, and aligning accounting education with the collaborative, analytical, and problem-solving competencies required in contemporary accounting practice in Nigeria.

Keywords: Jigsaw Learning Strategy, partnership accounting, accounting education students, cooperative learning, social interdependence, social constructivist learning, cognitive learning, peer teaching, collaborative learning, conceptual understanding, financial accounting instruction, practical accounting education, accounting pedagogy, Nigerian polytechnics, Nigeria.