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.     

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     

The evolution of a graduate capstone accounting course

This paper discusses how the design of a graduate capstone accounting course evolved over 3 years, taking into consideration input from various stakeholders. The course has three, 5-week modules: accounting ethics, earnings management, and business strategy. The accounting ethics module emphasizes codified principles of ethics and professional behavior in accounting. The integrating theme of the last two modules is how accounting professionals can detect earnings management being used as a short-term solution to a longer-term strategic problem. Materials are included that may assist other schools contemplating a capstone accounting course in their 150-hour program.     

Learning to learn in the accounting Principles course: Outcome assessment of an integrative business analysis project

This paper reports on an effort to integrate some of the Accounting Education Change Commission's recommendations for the Principles course. A project involving comprehensive analysis of a publicly traded company was introduced in the Managerial Accounting course as a vehicle to develop critical thinking, problem solving, ethical sensitivity, team-work, and communication skills among sophomore-level business majors. As a means of assessing outcomes, a follow-up questionnaire was administered to measure the effectiveness of the project, and results were analyzed. The project was found to have made positive impacts across several dimensions of the learning process. Implications for Accounting curricula are discussed.     

The introductory financial accounting course: Its role in the curriculum for accounting majors

This paper reports a study that addressed two related research questions. The first concerns the proper emphasis in teaching introductory financial accounting in terms of the conceptual and procedural aspects of the subject. The second deals with the adequacy of introductory courses in preparing accounting majors for their intermediate and advanced accounting courses. Professors who had recently taught intermediate and/or advanced accounting responded to a questionnaire designed to answer the above questions. A recent study of the curriculum for accounting majors helped provide a framework for part of the questionnaire. The responses provide some evidence favoring a more conceptual emphasis, although it is not conclusive. There is a clear indication that these professors perceive the preparation received by accounting majors to be inadequate. A related finding is that more study of the accounting curriculum is needed, especially in terms of when the various topics should be taught.     

Internationalization of the introductory financial accounting course

This note describes the method used at Illinois State University to add an international perspective to the introductory financial accounting course. It discusses the materials distributed to the faculty and gives suggestions for integrating them with textbook material.     

How to integrate a business plan into your introductory accounting course

This article provides a business plan assignment, along with a business plan grading sheet, oral presentation grading sheet, and peer evaluation form for use in a user-oriented introductory accounting course. The article includes a discussion of issues related to making the group project assignment run smoothly, such as assigning students to groups, simplifying assumptions, ways to add specificity, grading of written reports, and set-up and grading of oral presentations.     

Improving the writing of accounting students: A cooperative venture

Many accounting departments have initiated programs to integrate writing into the accounting curriculum; others have just begun the process. The purpose of this paper is to present the unique features of the writing program used at our university. As with many programs, this one elevates our accounting students' perceptions about the importance of writing, and improves the quality of accounting students' writing within the framework of the kinds of writing accountants actually do on the job. What's different about our approach is (1) a transition workshop, (2) the collaboration of an accounting instructor, a writing consultant, and professional accountants, and (3) a unique way of incorporating peer reviews. After these differences are discussed, a final section of the paper provides recommendations for designing a writing program.     

The international accounting course state of the art

The objective of this article is to report to professors interested in developing or updating an international accounting course the experience of other professors who are already teaching such a course. The information presented here is based on review and analysis of international course syllabi offered at 31 U.S., Canadian, British and New Zealand universities.     

Preparation for a first level university accounting course: The experience in New zealand

This study seeks to extend the work of Baldwin and Howe (1982) in three ways: first, to differentiate between the different levels of accounting in high school; second, to take into account the level of previous study in economics and mathematics; and third, to examine the effects of these previous levels of study on three different parts of the first level university accounting course. The results are in agreement with the majority of earlier research in that the level of previous study of accounting had no association with the performance in any part of the course. The study of economics showed a positive association with performance in the course, with the major benefit in management accounting.     

Learning by doing: a case study of qualitative accounting research

The increasing number of master's degrees in accounting as well as specialist MBA's mean that an understanding of research methods is now an important part of the toolkit of accounting educators. In the literature there has been an increasing interest in qualitative accounting research. Whilst this interest has been mirrored by an increase in qualitative methods textbooks, less is known about the experience of undertaking such research. This presents a problem for educators, as they need material for students to work with and analyse before they are able to design their own research projects. This paper presents a case study based upon an extensive piece of qualitative research concerned with the use of accounting information in decision-making processes in banking. Review, exploratory and application questions provide a framework through which the case study can be used as a learning resource for accounting educators, supervisors and students.     

Understanding financial crisis through accounting models

This paper presents evidence that accounting (or flow-of-funds) macroeconomic models helped anticipate the credit crisis and economic recession. Equilibrium models ubiquitous in mainstream policy and research did not. This study traces the intellectual pedigrees of the accounting approach as an alternative to neo-classical economics, and the post-war rise and decline of flow-of-funds models in policy use. It includes contemporary case studies of both types of models, and considers why the accounting approach has remained outside mainstream economics. It provides constructive recommendations on revising methods of financial stability assessment and advocates an ‘accounting of economics’.     

Research in managerial accounting: Learning from others' experiences

The purpose of this paper is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of three research methods employed in managerial accounting: experimental, survey and field research. We do this by drawing on the three papers published in this issue of the Journal. These three papers provide the reader with a 'behind the scenes' exposé on the problems, choices and decisions confronted by the researcher during the method phase of the empirical study. The complexities associated with method are rarely reported in published papers nor is there any explanation of why effort is devoted to particular methodological issues. It is, however, important for the novice researcher to recognise these choices and problems, both when selecting a particular method, and in designing a study. We attempt to critique these papers in terms of choice of method and also the extent to which each of the studies satisfies the three 'maxims' of scientific method, namely, construct validity, internal validity and external validity. Our review demonstrates the trade-offs that are necessarily made when designing a research study. There are, however, ways in which the effects of these trade-offs can be minimised and we provide guidance as to how the study design might be improved to achieve this.     

Tell me a story: Using creative writing in introductory accounting courses to enhance and assess student learning

Low student motivation, apprehension and anxiety towards accounting, and diversity in learning styles are a few incentives for employing non-traditional tools for teaching introductory accounting courses. Three modes of storytelling – fairy tales, fables, and poetry – are used in financial and managerial accounting courses to enhance and assess student learning. We find the storytelling exercises give us good insight as to whether students genuinely understand course content. Students indicate that storytelling helps them to understand accounting concepts and make the course more fun. Assignment outcomes have been used at conferences and campus events and have generated conversations about accounting beyond business faculty.     

Using accounting equation analysis to teach the statement of cash flows in the first financial accounting course

Understanding the statement of cash flows requires that students have some knowledge of accrual-basis accounting. This means that coverage of the statement of cash flows is deferred until late in the introductory financial accounting course and related textbooks, a time when student motivation and retention may be waning. The timing of statement of cash flow coverage is unfortunate for two reasons. First, the statement of cash flows is an important topic that all business students need to understand. Second, most students understand cash flows at the start of their financial accounting class, so there is no reason to defer coverage of this topic.This paper describes a user-oriented, pedagogical approach to integrating the statement of cash flows throughout the first financial accounting course. The essence of this approach is the use of an expanded accounting equation with temporary cash accounts corresponding to the major categories on the statement of cash flows. Directly capturing cash flow information simplifies the preparation of the statement of cash flows.     

High school accounting and student performance in the first level university accounting course: A UK study

This article contains the results of a UK study on the effect of high school accounting on student performance in a first level university accounting course. In addition to replicating previous research, it extends the scope of previous work by examining a wider range of assessments and also investigates the question of numerical ability as an additional differentiating factor in student performance.     

Using a stakeholder-based process to develop and implement an innovative graduate-level course in management accounting

Accounting programs have been challenged (e.g., W.S. Albrecht, R.J. Sack, Accounting Education: Charting the Course Through a Perilous Future, Accounting Education Series, vol. 16, American Accounting Association, Sarasota, FL, 2000; AICPA Core Competency Framework for Entry into the Accounting Profession, AICPA, New York, NY, 1999) to create innovative, cross-disciplinary courses/curricula and to tie such offerings to institutional strategic plans (e.g., I.T. Nelson, J.A. Bailey, A.T. Nelson, Issues in Accounting Education, 13 (1999) 301; AACSB International, Standards for accounting accreditation (April 21, 2000), AACSB, St. Louis, MO, 2000; AACSB International, Final draft – Eligibility procedures and standards for accounting accreditation 2004). This paper provides details about both the process used to develop an innovative graduate-level accounting course and the modules (Strategic Cost Management, Planning, and Performance Measurement) comprising the course. The paper therefore describes how one accounting program responded to the aforementioned challenges.At a strategic level, the paper discusses a three-stage process (planning, implementation, and assessment) that guided new-course design. Of particular interest is the impact of our business school's Strategic Plan and the AICPA core competency framework for entry into the accounting profession. (AICPA, New York, NY, 1999) on the development of educational objectives for the new course. Selected implementation issues (e.g., resource commitments needed to support delivery of the new course) are discussed. We also provide details regarding an assessment plan for the course and how data collected for the first three offerings of the course have guided course improvements. Because of its focus on process, this paper should be of interest to other accounting educators, particularly those interested in a stakeholder-based approach to developing and implementing new courses and curricula.     

The life of an accounting information systems research course

This paper describes the development, evaluation, and the changes made to a research course for part-time Master of Science students in accounting. The course prepares students for their Master of Science thesis and aims to develop their research skills. On top of this, it managed to overcome barriers between faculty members who were chiefly involved in teaching, and those who mainly conducted research. In the course, students work in teams, closely supervised by faculty members, and go through a research process that ends with the preparation of a research paper. The course consists of 10 steps, which are described and critically discussed. Evaluation scores indicate that students appreciate the course and experience a steep learning curve. Faculty members also experience benefits, despite the extensive preparation time involved.     

Offering a globally-linked international accounting course in real time: a sharing of experiences and lessons learned

This article reports the experiences from offering an online international accounting course that involved students from Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA participating in real time via both audio and video links. In addition to interacting among themselves, students also interacted with accounting practitioners and standard setters from these countries. The latter attended class either in person or “virtually” via audio and video links. The paper also discusses the major benefits from the course, as identified by student feedback and direct faculty observations. A number of challenges in offering a course of this type also are identified. These insights can assist accounting educators interested in implementing a similar international accounting course at their institutions. They also have implications for applying distance-learning approaches in courses with a domestic focus.