Accounting Undergraduates' Perceptions of Cooperative Learning as a Model for Enhancing their Interpersonal and Communication Skills to Interface Successfully with Professional Accountancy Education and Training

To interface effectively with professional accountancy training, accounting educationalists should ensure that they turn out graduates who possess the interpersonal and communication skills required of today's accountant. Attainment of these skills is promoted by group work. However, little empirical evidence exists to help academics make an informed choice about which form of group learning enhances interpersonal and communication skills. This paper addresses this deficiency by comparing perceptions of skills enhancement between accounting students who experienced traditional or simple group learning and those who undertook cooperative learning. The findings reveal that the cooperative learning cohort perceived their learning experience to be significantly more effective at enhancing interpersonal and communication skills than that of the simple group learning cohort. This study provides evidence that cooperative learning is a more effective model for delivering interpersonal and communication skills than simple group learning, thereby creating a more successful interface between academic accounting and professional accountancy training.     

Developing critical reflection: An integrated approach

The increasing impact of globalisation and digitalisation on accounting reinforces the need for accounting education to develop students' core professional skills such as communication, analytical skills and critical thinking, as well as their ability to evaluate the relativity of their knowledge and acknowledge learning needs. This paper reports on a comparative study that explores outcomes from surveys of two separate student groups as they engaged with the elements and components of a task designed to develop their skills and ability to reflect on the currency of knowledge. Findings show merit in the design's integrated and interactive approach, including the transition of students' perspectives, with critical reflection developed through sequencing individual and cooperative learning, oral and written exercises, and formative and summative assessment. Survey responses from students indicate that they responded positively to the challenge of critically reflecting upon research and articulating the relativity of their knowledge.     

What skills and attributes does an accounting graduate need? Evidence from student perceptions and employer expectations

For some years there has been much debate between various stakeholders about the need for accounting graduates to develop a broader set of skills to be able to pursue a career in the accounting profession. This study uses mixed methods to examine perceptions and expectations of two major stakeholders: students and employers. Findings indicate that students are becoming aware of employers’ expectations in terms of communication, analytical, professional and teamwork skills. Although employers are still expecting a good understanding of basic accounting skills and strong analytical skills, they are also requiring ‘business awareness’ and knowledge in terms of the ‘real world’. Both students and employers report that many of the ‘essential’ non‐technical and professional skills and attributes are not being developed sufficiently in university accounting programmes.     

Generic skills in accounting: perspectives of Chinese postgraduate students

This study examines Chinese accounting students’ perceptions of skills required for a professional accounting position in Australia and of the emphasis placed on skills during their postgraduate Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) course. The study is motivated by concerns about international students’ inadequate generic skills and their difficulty in securing professional employment. We find that Chinese students perceive ‘communication skills’ to be the most important for their professional employment in Australia, but at the same time they tend to overemphasise technical skills and underemphasise other desirable generic skills.     

Learning through writing in a first-year accounting course

More than any other activity at a university, the writing experiences of students are directly linked to their academic progress. This paper reports on the practical steps taken in restructuring the curriculum of a first-year accounting course at the University of Sydney to develop students’ writing skills within a broader skills-based program to enhance learning. Three dimensions of students’ writing skills are addressed: writing skills as prerequisites for learning, writing skills as a means of learning, and writing skills as an outcome of learning.The paper explains how the educational theory about learning to write and writing to learn contributed to a pedagogical framework for teaching practice and gives several examples as illustration of the pedagogy. Interactive reading guides, annotated model answers, analysis grids, and formative self and peer assessment are among techniques adopted to encourage students to reflect actively on their own learning through writing. The curriculum redesign project reported here was first introduced in 1994, and substantially modified in 1995 in response to feedback. In general, the quality of submitted assignments, examination performance, and feedback from both staff and students suggests that the innovations reported in the paper have helped students to improve their writing skills and enabled them to become more engaged with the learning of the content of the course. Quantitative feedback between 1994–1997 confirms these conclusions.     

Integrating effective writing skills in the accounting curriculum

The J.M. Tull School of Accounting at the University of Georgia has developed a program for its accounting curriculum which integrates the teaching of effective writing skills with the regular accounting courses. Students in a three-course sequence write a total of eight papers — technical, memos, or reports. The assignments resemble on-the-job technical writing tasks actually encountered by professional accountants. A full-time writing consultant on the School's staff provides occasional lectures and handouts for students on effective writing skills; she also provides help to individual students who may need it. Papers are evaluated for both accounting content and effective writing     

Using a systems framework to develop higher level thinking skills in cost/management accounting: Experimental evidence

The teaching of learning and thinking skills has become a primary objective of accounting education. Recent cognitive research has emphasized the importance of a framework for the organization of knowledge in attaining these skills. This paper examines whether a systems framework leads to improved long-term learning and higher level thinking skills. The systems framework involves the identification of objectives, users, inputs, and outputs, in addition to the calculation process. A learning experiment was conducted in which the systems framework was used for organizing material presented to students and for practice exercises. This study suggests that the systems framework enhances long term learning and higher level thinking skills. These results support the recent emphasis on information systems in accounting education.     

A writing program for accounting courses

The author's premise is that communication skills, as well as technical knowledge, are critical elements for success in accounting. Accounting instructors can provide opportunities for students to hone their writing skills while teaching them technical subject matter. Assignments that require research in the profession's literature are particularly valuable for this purpose. Feed-forward and feed-back strategies can simplify the grading task and alert students to their writing deficiencies. Computer-assisted writing and analysis enhance the learning experience by using the technology students will encounter in the work place.     

Web-based practice and feedback improve tax students’ written communication skills

To prepare students for successful accounting careers, educators must be involved in developing students’ written communication skills. This article provides evidence that web-based lessons and self-tests appearing at www.gsu.edu/~accerl and dealing with three sentence structure issues significantly improve written communication skills. Our study involves control and treatment groups in a pre- versus post-treatment design. The authors measure passive voice, punctuation, and wordiness through in-class quizzes and writing assignments. Prior research has shown that a combined approach of lectures addressing writing skills within accounting classes, writing consultants, and detailed grading of assignments improve students’ written communication skills. However, this combined approach involves significant in-class time, departmental funds, and professor time. In contrast, this study shows that improved writing can occur without the substantial institutional resources these prior approaches required.     

Do Accounting Graduates’ Skills Meet The Expectations of Employers? A Matter of Convergence or Divergence

This study investigates the emphasis placed on technical and generic skills developed during undergraduate accounting courses from both the graduate and employer perspective. It is motivated by two issues. First, calls by the accounting profession and international education committees regarding the professional adequacy of graduates. Second, by the challenge facing educators and professional bodies to ensure accounting courses equip graduates with the necessary skills to add value to business. Data obtained from 174 graduates from an Australian university is compared with the perceived needs of a sample of employers. Major findings suggest that, while both groups acknowledged the importance of technical accounting skills, employers require a broad range of generic skills that graduates indicated were not being adequately taught in their accounting degree programme. Against this backdrop of skills convergence, the greatest areas of skills divergence from the employers’ perspective were those of team skills, leadership potential, verbal communication and the interpersonal skills of graduates.     

Students’ perceptions of their first accounting class: implications for instructors

The purpose of this action research study is to learn directly from undergraduate students, through focus groups, about their experiences in their first accounting class, especially about the students’ knowledge and practice of critical thinking and about which classroom experiences engaged their attention and enhanced learning. The findings show that students want to understand how the first accounting course connects to the business world and to their other classes. Participants were unsure about when and how they practiced critical thinking; for improved learning outcomes, instructors need to keep critical thinking front and center. Students also need instruction in how to study accounting and how to utilize effectively the resources provided in their textbooks and as supplemental tools (e.g. integrated accounting software). Accounting professors must adapt their teaching methods to help students to meet professional demands, such as critical thinking skills and ability to handle a complex global business environment.     

论会计教学中的思维教学法

会计专业本科教学的核心目标是让学生掌握专业技能,利用技能解决实际的问题,强调的是知识应用能力。但是在现有的教学方式下,学生学到的只是惰性知识,学习迁移能力差。解决的出路是,在现有教学方法中加强对学生思维模式的培养。思维教学法是帮助学生克服知识应用与学习迁移问题的有用工具。     

From Plagiarism‐Plagued to Plagiarism‐Proof: Using Anonymized Case Assignments in Intermediate Accounting

Plagiarism in accounting case assignments is a serious problem that undercuts the important objectives the case assignments are used to achieve: the development of students’ critical thinking skills and the advancement of their written communication skills. This paper examines plagiarism behavior through the lens of fraud theory by targeting two elements of the fraud triangle: rationalization and opportunity. Efforts to target rationalization by changing student perceptions of peer behavior were not effective. This led to a shift in focus to the assignment itself which was providing the opportunity for misconduct. Students were sidestepping authentic engagement in the assignment by gaining access to published solutions or peer submissions from previous semesters. One failsafe design response to this problem is to use only originally written cases. However, writing a large number of original cases each semester is unrealistic within many instructors’ workloads. This article instead proposes the use of a case refreshing strategy that makes cases appear unique to each group of students. When this strategy was introduced in an intermediate accounting course, there was a dramatic decrease in plagiarism and a corresponding improvement of the academic integrity environment in the course.     

Implications of student‐generated screencasts on final examination performance

While educational technologies can play a vital role in students’ active participation in introductory accounting subjects, learning outcome implications are less clear. We believe this is the first accounting education study examining the implications of student‐generated screencast assignments. We find benefits in developing the graduate attributes of communication, creativity and multimedia skills, consistent with calls by the profession. Additionally, we find improvement in final examination performance related to the assignment topic, notably in lower performing students. The screencast assignment was optional, and the findings suggest a tailored approach to assignment design related to students’ developmental needs is appropriate.     

Service-learning: an innovative approach to teaching accounting: a teaching note

Service-learning allows students to enhance their learning through real-world applications of accounting concepts. This Teaching Note describes the service-learning process and the benefits to students, faculty, the university, the community, and the accounting profession. Quotations from students' reflective journals are used as illustrations regarding how students develop communication, leadership, strategic, and critical thinking skills. Practical issues for implementing and supervising service-learning projects are also given.     

我国政府绩效审计人员的能力框架研究

根据能力要素法,我国政府绩效审计人员能力框架的构成要素包括专业知识、专业技能和专业品质,其中公共政策与法规知识、绩效评估与报告知识、会计财务与审计知识、公共管理与行政知识、预算理论与实务知识以及信息技术与计量知识属于政府绩效审计人员的核心专业知识;逻辑思维能力、决策分析能力、团队合作能力、表达沟通能力以及技术运用能力属于政府绩效审计人员的核心专业技能;独立公正、廉洁奉公、合格胜任、勤勉负责,以及职业谨慎属于政府绩效审计人员的核心专业品质。     

Fostering deep and elaborative learning and generic (soft) skill development: the strategic use of case studies in accounting education

It is vital that accounting educators take responsibility for the development of students' generic (soft) skills in conjunction with, discipline-specific skills. Research indicates that the typical learning styles of accounting students are not suited to the acquisition of generic skills. In this paper learning theory is used to provide a framework to support the use of case studies as a tool to promote appropriate learning styles and thereby enhance generic skill development. The paper details a number of strategies that may be implemented with case studies to achieve these goals. The implications for accounting educators, which are significant, are discussed.     

Introducing a Learning Portfolio in an Undergraduate Financial Accounting Course

This paper evaluates changes made to the internal assessment component of a third year financial accounting course at a university in New Zealand. A learning portfolio was designed to supplement existing coursework. The aim was to engender in students a deep rather than a surface approach to learning. As a record of the students' learning, the learning portfolio was an attempt to produce an innovative development in the assessment of what was a traditionally taught financial accounting course. Within their learning portfolios, students were required to complete a number of tasks, each aimed at improving critical thinking skills and creativity. Students were also required to maintain a personal or reflective section aimed at personalising and deepening the quality of their learning.     

Power to business professors: Automatic grading of problem-solving tasks in a spreadsheet

This paper presents an innovative approach, based on Excel files and a detailed implementation guide, that allows a professor with proficient spreadsheet skills to develop individualized problem-solving tasks for assignments and examinations that test students on cognitive thinking processes beyond memorizing and drilling. The professor accomplishes this goal by requiring the students to model a business problem-solving task in a worksheet environment. Each student’s work is marked automatically by a generic “plug and play” Visual Basic for Application (VBA) algorithm. The scores and feedback provided are tailored to each individual student and address not only the problem-solving outcome but also the problem-solving process. The learning objective discussed in this work is implemented at a Norwegian university business school.     

Critical thinking and communication skills: Integration and implementation issues

This article describes issues associated with implementing an integrated approach to critical thinking and communication skills within accounting courses. The article builds on the work of Hirsch and Collins (1988) and discusses the following issues: (a) the collaboration of accounting and English faculty, (b) types of assignments, (c) assignment design, (d) the feedback process, (e) revisions in courses to accommodate a communication skills program, and (f) resources and motivation. The examples offered are from management/cost accounting courses, but our experience suggests that such an integrated approach to teaching critical thinking and both oral and written communication skills works well within most accounting and other business courses. However, individual programs will need to be tailored in order to address the issues defined here in ways that best fit their mission, goals, and resources.