I presented this paper at the British Accounting and Finance Association 2026 Annual Conference in Manchester and the BAFA Education SIG 2026 in Sheffield. It has also been accepted for presentation at the AAA Global Connect Conference in August 2026 What’s the problem? Pass rates for exit-level exams for ACCA and CPA for 2024 and…
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Forget the ‘label’ The most useful part of mindset is to consider how we react when we fail or experience tough challenges. That’s what I’m interested in. We’ve heard a lot about ‘mindset’ over the years. We know that it’s good to have a growth mindset, and not-so-great to have a fixed mindset. And if…
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Global pass rates for exit-level professional accounting exams often hover around the 40% mark. Failing students will either repeat these exams or quit their qualification journey. The levels they’ve completed were supposed to prepare them for those final exams (or filter them out if they were really not going to be able to complete the…
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We’ve heard a LOT about ‘growth mindset’s over the last few years. It’s become a buzzword that people use to encompass a whole bunch of stuff, from positivity, to lifelong learning, having an open mind and being prepared to take on challenges. These may all be things that a growth mindset may help you with,…
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Update (2025) I passed my Masters with distinction at the end of 2024. I wrote the contents of the article below at the beginning of my first year. I thoroughly enjoyed the process and am looking at doing my PhD. I didn’t think I’d study again! Like most of you, I feel like I spent…
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We want to get things right faster I always agreed with the motivational quotes that ‘learning takes effort’ and that it ‘takes time’. But when it took ME time to learn something, when I couldn’t get something right, and didn’t understand it quickly, I panicked. The longer it took me to learn something, the more…
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Introversion / Extroversion – What is it? We’ve been looking at how your personality affects your studying. In this article, I want to talk about some traits, so we can get a little more specific about how our studies are affected. So, what IS introversion / extroversion? (Spoiler alert: It has NOTHING to do with…
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Your personality dictates how you respond to study struggles We’ve been looking at how your personality affects your studying. Here, I’m talking about how your study struggles are affected by your personality, and what to consider to change this. Two students struggle with a topic: One of them has a personality style that prefers to…
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Is your personality perfect for your studying? Short answer? Nope! Don’t panic though! No matter what we’re learning, there will be facets of our personality that make things easier or smoother for us, and parts of our personality that make things tougher for us. What topics / subjects do you enjoy studying, and which don’t…
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Can your personality impact your exam performance? You want to improve the effectiveness of your studying, and improve your exam performance. Naturally, your first thought would be lectures / subject-matter material and textbooks. If those are awesome, then that’s the most important thing, right? Take a step back and ask yourself this… Assume you had…
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If you ‘know’ the textbook, will you pass? Thanks to the way a lot of school and earlier level exams are set, this feels true. If you know more theory, you’ll get higher marks. So, if you were a computer, if you could remember all the theory, would you pass all your exams? Is more…
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“I know I need to change my study habits” Most accounting students I work with are aware that they need to make changes to their study habits, because something just isn’t working anymore. Their old study habits aren’t effective anymore. (The reason this happens relates to our mindset, our beliefs about studying, and changing exams,…
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Your exam’s a month away… you’re not ready… what to do? I remember the feeling around a month away from exams. Dread was looming, guilt was rising, stress was increasing, and I felt like my study progress was like wading through cold syrup. Slow, painful and uncomfortable. My ACCA students and my PGDA students are…
DetailsI believe that Mindset will affect your studying MORE than anything else I believe that your Mindset will affect the success of your studying, almost more than anything else! This is why I now focus on Study Mindset & Strategy coaching for Accounting students instead of focussing on subject-matter. Why do Acc Students have Fixed…
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Introduction, and why we chatted Fenni Nghekevali CA(NAM) is the Chief Executive Officer at ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants for Namibia), and from her own journey she has a wealth of experience to share. We chatted about journeys outside our comfort zones, the importance of mindset, and the opportunities we may not realise we might…
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Introduction, and why we chatted Wiehann Olivier CA(SA) is a Partner and the Digital Asset Lead at Mazars. I chatted to him because of his specialism in cryptocurrency (sorry, ‘digital assets’!). My focus in speaking to him was not so much about the actual accounting for cryptocurrency, as the experience of starting this division for…
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Introduction, and why we chatted Tom Clendon is an online lecturer, who specialises in the SBR (Strategic Business Reporting) exam for the ACCA qualification. I chatted to him about professional qualification shifts, the challenges that our students face, and why they struggle with the things they do. Here’s Toms’ brief background: Have exams changed? If…
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Should you leave questions until AFTER you’re finished studying? (This is one of a series of articles) As part of my work with accounting students on their Study Strategy, this is a topic we discuss at length, as part of our discussion around how to make study sessions more effective, and improve exam performance. I’m…
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Should you leave questions until AFTER you’re finished studying? (This article is part of a series) As part of my work with accounting students on their Study Strategy, this is a topic we discuss at length, as part of our discussion around how to make study sessions more effective, and improve exam performance. I’m writing…
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Should you leave questions until AFTER you’re finished studying? As part of my work with accounting students on their Study Strategy, this is a topic we discuss at length, as part of our discussion around how to make study sessions more effective, and improve exam performance. I’m writing a series of articles explaining a few…
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Purpose of this chat I chatted to Mariam Motala (PGDA MAF lecturer and Programme Head) and Romaana Karodia (PGDA Tax lecturer) from Regent Business School. They’ve both been lecturing PGDA students for years, and we chatted about the struggles that we feel students face, what they should be thinking of and focussing on as they…
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What did we cover? Regent Business School invited me to be a guest speaker on one of their webinars dedicated to students who are considering doing their CTA / PGDA in 2022. We covered: Prof Stegen: Regent’s PGDA Programme for 2022 (0:00 – 11:16) Yvonne: Mindset and how it impacts your studying (11:16 – 41:50)…
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We want more entrepreneurial accountants! Muhammed Ismail is a recently qualified CA(SA) who has started his own business, myCAhub. We chatted about a LOT of stuff, so I’ve separated our discussion into a few posts. In this post, we chatted about entrepreneurship, and some specific challenges and opportunities related to accounting professionals, based on our…
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Who is Muhammed Ismail, what did we chat about? Muhammed Ismail is a recently qualified CA(SA) who has started his own business, myCAhub. We chatted about a LOT of stuff, so I’ve separated our discussion into a few posts. In this post, we chatted about his qualification journey, challenges that students face on this journey,…
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“I feel so stupid” I hear this from so many students. A lot more students will FEEL this, but not say anything, because it’s a horrible thing to admit. This breaks my heart for a few reasons: I see students quitting, or contemplating quitting, a study or qualification path they’ve put their heart and soul…
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Does this sound like you? You’ve attended your lectures for the day (face-to-face or online!), and you have your notes from the session, your textbooks, tutorials question bank, not to mention your massive stash of stationery. (If you’re anything like me!). Now, answer these questions: Do you still need to do revision and summaries before…
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What is a ‘wicked’ learning environment? Yes, I know a lot of my students will agree that accounting is a wicked environment, mainly based on the fact that they’re really stressed with their studies and struggle with all the theory, volume and complexity. But this is not what I’m talking about! Psychologists use the term…
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How do we answer questions? When we start learning at school, we learn how learning and studying works. We develop our understanding of what it means to ‘learn’ something, and what it means to be ‘competent’ with the subject matter. In a lot of cases, here’s what we believe about the learning process: When we…
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