Prof. dr. Evelien Opdecam » People

Evelien Opdecam (°1984, Gent) obtained the degree of doctor in applied economics in 2014. Currently, she is working as a doctor-assistant at the department of Accounting, Corporate Finance and Taxation. Her research area is Accounting Education. Prior to earning her PhD, she was working as an auditor for the Flemish ministry of Education and Training at the Court of Audit.

Evelien presented her research at several conferences, including the European Accounting Association conference (2009, 2010 ,2011, 2012 and 2014), the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction conference (2009 and 2011), the Manufacturing Accounting Research Conference (2010), and the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (2012). Her research has been published in leading international peer-reviewed journals. Her first doctoral paper is published in Research in Higher Education (2014) and the second paper is published in Issues in Accounting Education (2012). Additionally, Evelien is co-author of an international study on learning style preferences, published in the Asian Review of Accounting (2011).

Teaching

Courses in the Academic Teacher Education in Economics & Business Economics:

• Teaching methodology I
• Teaching methodology II
• Practice based exercises A
• Practice based excercises B

Research

Expertise

• Accounting education
• The effect of team learning on soft skills and performance
• Learning styles and learning strategies and the effect on teaching and learning accounting
• Embedding active learning in the curriculum of the alpha-sciences
• University dropout

Awards

• Best Paper Award Winner with the paper “Heterogeneous versus Homogeneous Groups in Team learning: Beneficial for both High- and Low-ability students?” . Authors: dr. Evelien Opdecam, Prof. dr. Patricia Everaert and Prof. dr. Hilde Van Keer. BAFA Annual Conference (British Accounting and Finance Association), Accounting Education Special Interest Group, Manchester, May 2015.
• Best Paper Award Winner for Asian Review of Accounting, with the paper “The impact of cultural factors on students learning style preferences: A global comparison between Japan, Australia and Belgium” (Boland, Sugahara, Opdecam, Everaert, 2011)

Memberships

• the European Accounting Association
• the American Accounting Association

Refereeing

• Reviewer for the journal ‘Accounting Education: an International Journal’
• Reviewer for the journal ‘Issues in Accounting Education’
• Reviewer for the American Accounting Association: annual meeting (Teaching and learning section)

Recent publications