Abstract This article presents information on the results of an experiment designed to compare the effectiveness of using self-study materials with traditional lecture in elementary accounting and to test the effects of selected personality variables on student performance in the two alternative learning modes. It is apparent that in this experiment those students using self-study materials performed better on the criterion tests in the overall procedural, conceptual, and computational areas than those students attending regular lectures. Regression analysis indicates that students with certain personality patterns performed best in each study situation. This immediately suggests two possibilities. First, by using the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule it may be possible to make assignments to self-study and regular classes based on a predicted ability to do well in a specific learning mode. Second, had the above assignment been made in this experiment, test results in both groups apparently would have been significantly better.
McNeill et al. (Wed,) studied this question.