ACC8000 Research in Accounting Practice: Assignment 1 Semester 1, 2018

This document provides a comprehensive solution to an assignment on Research in Accounting Practice (ACC8000). It addresses key concepts such as plagiarism, in-text referencing, and different types of research questions (exploratory, causal, descriptive). The solution also delves into deductive and inductive research approaches, positivism, constructivism, and the identification of independent, dependent, and control variables. Furthermore, it analyzes hypothesis formulation, research design (posttest-only design), and the use of treatment and control groups in the context of business ethics education. The assignment also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using measures from prior studies and concludes with insights on the impact of gender on ethical decision-making among business students. The use of meta-analysis to enhance the credibility of the research is also highlighted. Desklib offers a wealth of similar resources for students seeking assistance with their assignments.

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Research in Accounting Practice
Research in Accounting Practice

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Research in Accounting Practice
Question 1
a. What is plagiarism and why is it important for you to avoid it?
Plagiarism is known is also known is an intellectual theft. Any action is going to be
considered as the plagiarism when someone else will use another author’s research, their
language, ideas, without proper acknowledgement. It is important to avoid plagiarism because it
is a crime to use someone else’s efforts and work for the benefit of your own. Also, you will not
gain any knowledge unless and until you will use your own brain instead of copying others work.
b. When should an in-text reference be used in an assignment or report?
We should use an in text referencing when we have to use the work of someone else’s
work in our work. We can refer to other authors work, summarize it, quote it, and paraphrase it.
The method of using the in-text reference is by writing the last name of the author along with the
year of the publication, for example (Jones, 2017), next to the sentence where we have use it.
c.
i. To study in the university is a very confusing thing. There exist various kinds of
resources by which the students can take help. Although, some of the students like everything on
their platter served. They don’t understand that, things don’t work this way. You have to make
effort by your own. After that, you have to work on what you have found. For getting a
successful time period in the university it is recommended to use both the resources, one that is
being collected by the student and the one which are present on the website of university. The

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students will be able to find the links of various kinds of resources which will be helpful for the
students in completing their assignments and they will expand the horizon of their knowledge.
So, the students are advised to take initiation rather than sitting and waiting for the food to be
served (Done, 2018).
ii. It is not an easy thing to study in the university. Students are surrounded by so
many resources. For having a successful life in university it is required from the students to work
on their own. As per Done (2018), “to have a good success at university, use the resources
available on the study desk for your course and those available in the university’s website”.
d. Daff, L., De Lange, P. and Jackling, B., 2012. A comparison of generic skills and
emotional intelligence in accounting education. Issues in Accounting Education, 27(3), pp.627-
645.
Question 2
a. Exploratory research question: what kind of problems the worker will face during
working on new system.
b. Casual research question: does the worker feel any kinds of problem while
working on the new system.
c. Descriptive research question: what are the problems faced by the workers while
working of new system.
Question 3
Deductive research approach: the deductive research approach is used
when we are required to develop a hypothesis which is based on the theory that is already
existed. After that, we frame out the research strategy as per the requirement for testing the
hypothesis (Burney, 2008).

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The term deductive means doing reasoning from particular facts to the general. The
deductive approach deals with the deductive conclusion in which we deduct from conclusion.
Inductive research approach: it is also known as inductive reasoning. It starts various
observations along with theories which are proposed in the end of the research process as per the
results of the observation. The meaning of the data which we have collected in the research is
further analyzed and then the pattern is identified along with building theory for the relationship.
Positivism: the positivism can be understood as the philosophy which promotes that the
knowledge should be gained by the means of observable and the measurable facts. This is also
known as empiricism. The person who believes in the positivism does not rely on the
experiences that are subjective (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009). As per the positivists, only
physics, biology and chemistry are considered as the true science.
Constructivism: as per the people who believe in this philosophy, the construction of the
reality is done by socially. As per these people, there exists no single truth unlike the people who
believes in the positivism. According to them, the reality is more like a subjective creation. We
the people generally create our own view of the world, which is based on the perception that we
possess. The concepts that come under the social constructs are gender, race and culture.
Question 4
a. At least several times a week.
b. I usually borrow books.
Question 5
Independent variables: these variables do not depend on the other variables (Campbell,
2014).

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Research in Accounting Practice
Dependent variables: as the name suggests, these variables do depends on the other
variables for their value.
Control variables: they are constant and do not change throughout the whole process.
Question 6
a. Age, gender, business ethics coarse.
b. Moral judgment on ethical dilemmas and personal ethical perspectives.
c. The H1 hypothesis is written as the directional as it indicates all the valid points
that are reasonable for the research
d. The H1 hypothesis has been written in the alternate format.
e. In H3, it is written as “gender will interact with business ethics education as
follows”. In this line, the term interact means that how the different gender will have interaction
with the business ethics education. On the basis of their being female and male, the way they
deal with business ethics is quite different.
f. The treatment and control group have been used in this research paper are used
for the comparison of business students who does not possess any kind of training related to the
business ethics and the students who are undergoing the training of business ethics. The
determination of the two groups is done by their enrollment status for the business.
g. The posttest-only design which is used in the research study is famous for its
being useful by ensuring that the experiment which is conducted in the research will be of strong
level of internal validity. The fundamental behind this design is quite simple and does involved
the randomly allocation of the assigning subjects between the two groups that has been selected,
that is, a test group and a control group.

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h. There are various disadvantages of using the posttest-only design. Out of which,
the one main disadvantage is that the people who are involve in the study as the participant can
gain the information about the study from the pretest and after that, they can assume the
hypothesis of the researcher. This may also affects their possible responses that they might have
given if there were no pretest were involved in the study. Also, there is requirement from the
groups that they must be equivalent.
i. This assignment was conducted over a time period of several weeks. This might
affects the results of the study. This research work was done on two groups of people, the one
which do not possess any knowledge about the business ethics and the second one which is
currently undergoing through the training of business ethics. Out of that, our main motive of
doing this was to find out the gender, personal ethics perspectives and moral judgment affects the
effectiveness of business ethics education. The responses of the people might get changes over
the course of time. When they started understand that what is actually happening and how they
are being judge by the researcher, there is a very high probability that they might going to change
their response.
j. advantages and disadvantages of using measures from prior studies
Advantages: The advantage of using the measures from the prior studies are that, the
prior studies provide us the method that are already being used and are very well proved. It is
beneficial for the researcher, so that they do not have to think of any new measures.
Disadvantage: The disadvantages of using the measures from the prior studies are that,
the researcher use the work that has already been done. It affects their creativity. They do not
think about making new system, which might be better from the previous ones.

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k. Control variables used in the study: academic records of the students, including
major, GPA, gender and age are the control variables along with the enrollment status in the
business as well as the society coarse.
l. From the research work, we can summarize that the gender does affect the ethical
decisions of the business students a lot. It has been noticed that the students who wither belongs
to group where they get education on the business ethics or the group where they doesn’t, the
female members were more ethical than their male counterparts.
m. The meta-analysis in this report was used as it provides the combination of results
taken from the multiple studies. This helps in increasing the credibility of the research work.

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References
Burney, S. M. A. (2008). Inductive and deductive research approach. Department of Computer
Science, University of Karachi, Pakistan.
Alvesson, M., & Skoldberg, K. (2009). positivism, social constructionism, critical realism: Three
reference points in the philosophy of science. Reflexive methodology: New vistas for
qualitative research, 15-52.
Campbell, M. (2014). Types of variables. African Journal of Midwifery and Women's
Health, 8(4), 165-166.