Recent academic performance of students in their chartered accountancy professional examinations has been under scrutiny by the business community in South Africa, especially examination performance amongst Black, Coloured and Indian (BCI) students (SAICA, 2019a; Ryan, 2019). Noting the importance of preparing higher education students for future professional examinations, this study focused on Thuthuka Bursary Fund (TBF) students in accounting. The study participants were all from BCI groups whilst the study aimed to gain insight into TBF students’ perceptions regarding the value of two academic support structures. These structures involved additional tutorials, only offered to TBF students and individual learning program sessions, offered to all accounting students. The study aimed to understand the support format required to equip students to better prepare for examinations. Student perceptions were analysed to identify those aspects which could potentially make the offered support structures more conducive to the learning needs of students. Understanding student perceptions about the effectiveness of academic support is critical in promoting the study success of students and meeting their learning objectives. The study found that certain aspects of academic support are judged to positively contribute to students’ learning, while others can be improved upon. Students seem to prefer smaller support class sizes, language-specific facilitators, support classes being scheduled during normal class hours instead of after hours, an emphasis on exam writing techniques and, to a lesser extent, course content being covered. The findings suggest more regular student feedback about the academic support offered which could result in revisions to existing support structures. Such revisions might contribute to better assistance to students, potentially increasing their performance – also in continued professional learning after graduation.

中文翻译：

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Thuthuka Bursary Fund中的会计专业学生如何看待一所南非大学提供的学术支持

南非商业团体一直在审查学生在其特许会计师专业考试中的近期学习表现，尤其是黑人，有色和印度（BCI）学生的考试表现（SAICA，2019a; Ryan，2019）。注意到为未来的专业考试准备高等教育学生的重要性，本研究重点关注会计的Thuthuka Bursary Fund（TBF）学生。研究参与者均来自BCI组，而该研究旨在深入了解TBF学生对两种学术支持结构的价值的看法。这些结构包括仅提供给TBF学生的附加教程和提供给所有会计学生的个别学习课程。该研究旨在了解为学生配备更好的考试准备所需的支持形式。对学生的看法进行了分析，以确定可能使所提供的支持结构更有利于学生学习需求的那些方面。了解学生对学术支持有效性的看法对于促进学生的学习成功和实现他们的学习目标至关重要。研究发现，学术支持的某些方面被认为可以为学生的学习做出积极贡献，而其他方面则可以得到改善。学生似乎更喜欢较小的支持班级规模，特定语言的协助者，支持班级安排在正常上课时间而不是下班后，强调考试写作技巧，在较小程度上，课程内容被覆盖。调查结果表明，学生对提供的学术支持会有更多的定期反馈，这可能会导致现有支持结构的修订。此类修订可能会为学生提供更好的帮助，从而可能提高他们的表现-毕业后继续专业学习。