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Effect of Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy on Students’ Understanding of Accounting Concepts in Nigerian Polytechnics

Abstract

Understanding accounting concepts requires students to move beyond memorization and develop the ability to interpret accounting information, explain relationships among concepts, predict the effects of financial transactions, and apply accounting principles to practical situations. However, students in Nigerian polytechnics may experience difficulties understanding accounting concepts when instruction is predominantly teacher-centred and provides limited opportunities for students to express their initial ideas, test their understanding, observe outcomes, and explain differences between their expectations and actual results. The Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy provides a structured learning approach in which students first predict the outcome of an accounting situation, observe the actual result through demonstrations, calculations, examples, or practical activities, and subsequently explain the similarities or differences between their predictions and the observed outcomes. This process may encourage active engagement, reveal misconceptions, promote reflection, and strengthen students' conceptual understanding. Against this background, this study investigates the effect of the Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy on students' understanding of accounting concepts in Nigerian polytechnics. The study will be anchored on Constructivist Learning Theory, Conceptual Change Theory, and Experiential Learning Theory. Constructivist Learning Theory emphasizes the active construction of knowledge through learners' prior experiences, participation, interaction, and reflection. Conceptual Change Theory explains how learners' existing conceptions and misconceptions can be identified, challenged, reorganized, and replaced through experiences that provide meaningful evidence and explanation. Experiential Learning Theory emphasizes learning through concrete experiences, observation, reflection, conceptualization, and active experimentation. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how the Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy may influence students' understanding of accounting concepts. 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 Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy will be assessed using indicators such as prediction questions, individual prediction activities, activation of prior knowledge, prediction of accounting outcomes, justification of predictions, observation of accounting demonstrations, observation of transaction effects, observation of calculations, practical accounting activities, financial statement demonstrations, accounting simulations, comparison of predicted and actual outcomes, explanation of differences, identification of misconceptions, peer discussion, lecturer-guided explanation, evidence-based reasoning, reflection activities, corrective explanation, repeated prediction tasks, application of accounting concepts to new situations, scenario-based activities, case studies, practical exercises, individual accountability, group discussion, feedback, and opportunities for students to revise their explanations. Students' understanding of accounting concepts will be assessed using indicators such as ability to define accounting concepts accurately, explain concepts in their own words, identify relationships among accounting concepts, distinguish between related concepts, predict the effects of accounting transactions, explain the outcomes of accounting procedures, apply accounting principles to practical situations, classify accounting items correctly, interpret accounting information, explain the effects of transactions on financial statements, identify appropriate accounting treatments, recognize accounting assumptions, identify and correct misconceptions, justify accounting decisions, compare alternative accounting treatments, interpret accounting scenarios, solve conceptual accounting problems, apply accounting concepts to unfamiliar situations, and retain conceptual understanding after instruction. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, standardized accounting concept-understanding tests, prediction tasks, observation records, scenario-based questions, practical accounting exercises, case studies, concept-mapping activities, observation checklists, competency-based assessment rubrics, and pre-test and post-test assessments. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize students' demographic and academic characteristics, exposure to the Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy, learning experiences, and levels of accounting concept 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 Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy on students' understanding of accounting concepts. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, students' accounting concept understanding scores before and after exposure to the 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 Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy has a significant positive effect on students' understanding of accounting concepts in Nigerian polytechnics. Students exposed to the strategy are expected to demonstrate stronger conceptual understanding, improved reasoning, and greater ability to apply accounting concepts than students receiving conventional instruction. Prediction activities may encourage students to activate prior knowledge and make their initial understanding explicit before formal explanations are provided. Asking students to justify their predictions may help lecturers identify misconceptions and areas of conceptual difficulty. Observation activities may enable students to compare their expectations with actual accounting outcomes through demonstrations, calculations, transaction analyses, financial statement preparation, simulations, and practical exercises. For example, students may predict how a transaction will affect specific accounts or financial statements and subsequently observe the actual accounting treatment. Differences between predicted and observed outcomes may create opportunities for students to reconsider incorrect assumptions and reconstruct their understanding. Explanation activities may require students to articulate why the observed result occurred and identify the accounting principle responsible for the outcome. Peer discussion may expose students to alternative reasoning and encourage students to evaluate their own explanations. Lecturer-guided explanations and feedback may help resolve misconceptions that remain after observation. Repeated prediction-observation-explanation cycles may strengthen students' ability to apply accounting concepts to new and unfamiliar situations. Scenario-based activities may further connect conceptual understanding with realistic accounting transactions and business decisions. However, students' weak prior knowledge, inaccurate predictions, reluctance to disclose incorrect ideas, limited instructional time, inadequate practical resources, large class sizes, poorly designed prediction questions, insufficient lecturer facilitation, and excessive focus on obtaining the correct answer rather than explaining the underlying concept may reduce the effectiveness of the strategy. The study therefore expects well-designed, concept-focused, evidence-based, and properly facilitated Predict-Observe-Explain activities to contribute significantly to improved understanding of accounting concepts among accounting education students in Nigerian polytechnics. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy, accounting concept understanding, conceptual change, constructivist learning, experiential learning, active learning, accounting education, misconception correction, accounting pedagogy, student-centred instruction, practical accounting education, accounting skills development, conceptual learning, 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' conceptual understanding of accounting. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for integrating the Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy into accounting education programmes, developing effective prediction questions for accounting topics, using practical demonstrations and transaction simulations to support observation, encouraging students to justify and explain their predictions, incorporating peer discussion into explanation activities, providing immediate feedback to correct misconceptions, using realistic accounting scenarios to strengthen conceptual application, training accounting educators in Predict-Observe-Explain instructional techniques, developing competency-based assessments of accounting concept understanding, and aligning accounting education with the analytical, conceptual, problem-solving, and practical competencies required in contemporary accounting practice in Nigeria.

Keywords: Predict-Observe-Explain Strategy, accounting concepts, conceptual understanding, accounting education students, constructivist learning, conceptual change, experiential learning, active learning, misconception correction, student-centred instruction, accounting pedagogy, practical accounting education, accounting skills development, Nigerian polytechnics, Nigeria.