Critical thought on critical thinking research

Calls for improving the critical thinking ability of accounting students have been clear and repeated in both the accounting education and professional accounting literature. Although numerous ideas for developing critical thinking skills have been generated, there remains a significant lack of empirical evidence, in both the accounting education and higher education literature, that any specific instructional method can enhance the critical thinking skills of students. Given the lack of empirical support for success in the development of critical thinking skills, the value of further efforts to develop students' critical thinking skills must be questioned. The premise of this paper is that accounting programs and faculty wanting to address the issue of developing critical thinking skills in their curricula should be able to empirically examine whether their efforts are achieving the desired effects. This article first presents a brief review of prior research on critical thinking skills development and then offers suggestions to improve the design of future research on this topic. The authors attempt to provide guidance on the design of more powerful empirical tests of promising curricular strategies so that accounting faculty can determine if their attempts to enhance student critical thinking skills are meeting expectations.     

Asymmetric response to earnings news across different sentiment states: The role of cognitive dissonance

Using the Chinese stock market data, we test the hypothesis that cognitive dissonance influences the stock market response to earnings news. Supporting this notion, we find that investors disregard earnings news that contradicts their sentiment due to cognitive dissonance, thereby causing a muted announcement date price reaction to such news. Further analysis shows that higher retail concentration and greater valuation uncertainty of the underlying firm exacerbate this cognitive dissonance and hence amplify its impact, but less credible financial report does not. Finally, we find that cognitive dissonance is temporary for bad news under optimism, but is quite persistent for good news under pessimism. Overall, our findings offer a behavioral bias explanation to understand why investors underuse accounting information.     

A framework for incorporating critical thinking into accounting education

This paper presents a framework for integrating critical thinking into the accounting curriculum. This framework defines the basic elements of critical thinking. By breaking critical thinking into identifiable components one can then evaluate what aspects of the critical thinking process are being adequately addressed by the current curriculum, and which will need additional emphasis. Suggestions for implementation of this framework are made, with consideration given to the implications of the stages of college student intellectual development. This paper is intended to serve as a vehicle to organize discussions for accounting programs considering a comprehensive approach to incorporating critical thinking as an objective of their program.     

Alternative instructional strategies for creative and critical thinking in the accounting curriculum

In the midst of numerous accounting reform reports declaring that the memorization of accounting facts will no longer suffice, global economies have increased the pressure on universities to develop higher-order thinking skill curricula. This paper suggests that a consultative model of teaching can meet these challenges. From this framework, learning environments can be reshaped to support both the creative and critical thinking skills demanded by workplaces of the 21st century. In contrast to the passive reception of knowledge of teacher-centered classrooms, this style of teaching promotes active, student-centered learning. Importantly, a myriad of critical and creative thinking techniques, activities, and examples are detailed for developing accounting curricula in accordance with these views. Peripheral issues related to assessing higher-order thinking as well as cooperative grouping also are considered.     

Structuring financial statement analysis projects to enhance critical thinking skills development

This paper documents a method of structuring financial statement analysis projects to enhance the development of students’ critical thinking skills. The project is structured in a cooperative learning framework in which a student accesses financial statement information from the World Wide Web, performs a financial statement analysis, and then engages in an exercise with other students who have analyzed firms in the same industry. Both the individual and team phases of the project offer opportunities for students to develop several important critical thinking skills.     

Developing critical thinking: An examination of contemporary practices in accounting

Employers and professional bodies call for higher education accounting courses to emphasise the importance of critical thinking skills. This study provides an in-depth assessment of how critical thinking is currently taught and assessed across an entire accounting degree. Our study contributes to our understanding of how teaching and assessment can support students in developing their critical thinking. Using a case study approach, we identify resource restraints and disruptions to traditional forms of engagement as key challenges to developing critical thinking skills in accounting education. We conclude with suggestions for teaching practice, such as formative scaffolds and teacher-led discussions.     

Using short stories to teach critical thinking and communication skills to tax students

Researchers and numerous groups stress the importance of incorporating communication skills development into accounting curricula. Although a number of formal and informal techniques are available to instructors to incorporate writing skills into the classroom, many students have both oral and writing communication apprehension (CA). Short stories are a flexible teaching tool to overcome boredom both inside and outside the classroom. This scenario approach combines education and entertainment to make learning easier and interesting. Students can be required to develop short stories where accountants are the key characters and heroes. The better short stories may be placed on the Internet for future students to review. What may be wearisome and unexciting information can become meaningful through mystery, intrigue, humour, and adventure.     

Structuring financial statement analysis projects to enhance critical thinking skills development

This paper documents a method of structuring financial statement analysis projects to enhance the development of students’ critical thinking skills. The project is structured in a cooperative learning framework in which a student accesses financial statement information from the World Wide Web, performs a financial statement analysis, and then engages in an exercise with other students who have analyzed firms in the same industry. Both the individual and team phases of the project offer opportunities for students to develop several important critical thinking skills.     

人民币CDS产品的初步设计、定价及相关思考

该文立足人民币市场,以信用类债券作为参考债务设计单一名字债券信用违约互换,并以darrow-Turnbull模型为基础,结合中国信用类债券市场现实情况提出具体假设,采用国债、央票、掉期等多种曲线分别作为无风险收益率曲线,测算AAA至A-各信用评级债券的COS价格,在测算分析基础上提出基础债务、监管、法律、信用等关键问题的思考。     

Attributions,cognitive processes and control systems

This paper reports two experiments which are designed to provide insights into how superiors and subordinates make perceptual or cognitive mappings from accounting signals to causal agents. The experiments focus on superiors' and subordinates' information seeking and causal attribution utilization to explain the subordinate's reported performance. Particular attention is given to (1) asymmetric causal attribution utilization by the superior and the subordinate and (2) the attribution mappings the two actors make when they receive ambiguous signals about the subordinate's reported performance.     

Stock price synchronicity,cognitive biases,and momentum

The momentum anomaly is widely attributed to investor cognitive biases, but the trigger of cognitive biases is largely unexplored. In this study, inspired by psychology studies linking cognitive biases to the noisiness of information, we examine whether momentum returns are associated with high stock price synchronicity, a manifestation of noisy firm-specific information. Our results demonstrate that momentum is more pronounced in the presence of high stock price synchronicity. This finding is robust to other explanations and firm characteristics. We also find that stock price synchronicity boosts the profitability of momentum by amplifying investor underreaction to new information.     

Name complexity,cognitive fluency,and asset prices

We document three interesting phenomena in the Chinese stock market related to the complexity of stock tickers: Companies with more complex stock tickers are (1) held by fewer investors; (2) witness a lower turnover; and (3) experience lower returns during post‐IPO period. The change‐in‐change analysis based on ticker‐changing events generates consistent results. Such results are strong among companies with a higher level of individual investor ownership and stronger information asymmetry. Our findings confirm and extend Green and Jame (Journal of Financial Economics, 2013, 109:813–834) and support that cognitive fluency and name recognition influence investor behavior and asset prices.     

关于解决银行网点排队问题的探讨

近几年来，随着经济金融的发展和人民群众金融服务意识的增强，以及银行服务产品和代理业务的增加，来银行办理业务的客户越来越多，营业网点客户排队问题很突出。银行方面虽然采取种种措施，使之得到了一定程度的缓解。但还有为数不少的网点排队现象依然严重或出现反复，时常引起客户不满，对银行声誉带来不利影响。因此，必须清醒认识和高度重视银行网点排队问题，进一步有针对性地采取对策加以有效解决。     

关于基层行服务中的问题、成因及对策思考

今年以来，银行网点排队引发的金融服务问题备受社会公众和新闻媒体关注，国家银监会、人民银行、银行业协会以及工总行等因此相继出台了一系列政策措施，要求切实加强和改进金融服务，加快提升服务质量和服务能力。服务问题是工商银行股改上市后亟需突破的“瓶颈”障碍，也是我们争揽优质市场、提升核心竞争力、树立良好公司形象的关键环节，必须迅速加以改善和解决。     

The critical role of history in scenario thinking: Augmenting causal analysis within the intuitive logics scenario development methodology

The historian Eric Hobsbawm stated that ‘The safest empirical generalization about history is still that nobody heeds its obvious lessons much’. Whether at a macroeconomic level or within individual organisations there are numerous examples of this, such as the economic crash of 2008, the causes of which had many parallels with those that caused the great depression 80 years previously. On the other hand however, overly-relying on the past as a guide to the future has its own obvious dangers—not least that important future events may have no past precedent. As such, the present paper firstly provides a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using the past as a guide to the future. It then examines the role of history in scenario work, arguing that history should receive greater emphasis as part of the scenario planning process. We suggest changes to the standard Intuitive Logics (IL) approach to scenario planning which would render learning from history a more central component of the scenario process, in contrast to its current peripheral role. Rather than diminishing scenario planning’s ability to facilitate a consideration of how the future may differ from the past, we show how a greater emphasis on history can enhance consideration of the causality of future change. An adapted IL that has more emphasis on historical analysis can augment scenario planning’s effectiveness as a tool for consideration of the future.     

The futures field: Functions,forms, and critical issues

Institutional forms in the futures field should be founded on the functions to be performed. These functions are viewed in relation to the contribution of visionaries to more and better images of the future; to a family of related analytical activities aimed at enhancing intentionality and explicitness in planning and decision making; and to a variety of grass-roots movements aimed at encouraging participatory social planning. Five basic functionsgoals formulation; methods development; applications; coupling; implementation—are explored and some existing institutional forms are examined: image generators; research organisations; corporate or government planning groups; and citizen groups. These provide guidelines for the possible development of modified institutional forms and their orientation.     

Huntington's disease,critical illness insurance and life insurance

We describe briefly a model of Huntington's disease (HD), a highly penetrant, dominantly inherited, fatal neurological disorder. Although it is a single-gene disorder, mutations are variable in their effects, depending on the number of times that the CAG trinucleotide is repeated in a certain region of the HD gene. The model covers: (a) rates of onset, depending on CAG repeat length as well as age; (b) post-onset rates of mortality; and (c) the distribution of CAG repeat lengths in the population. Using these, we study the critical illness and life insurance markets. We calculate premiums based on genetic test results that disclose the CAG repeat length, or more simply on a family history of HD. These vary widely with age and policy term; some are exceptionally high, but in a large number of cases cover could be offered within normal underwriting limits. We then consider the possible costs of adverse selection, in terms of increased premiums, under various possible moratoria on the use of genetic information, including family history. These are uniformly very small, because of the rarity of HD, but do show that the costs would be much larger in relative terms if family history could not be used in underwriting. We point out some difficulties involved in applying a moratorium that recognises simply a dichotomy between ‘carriers’ and ‘non-carriers’ of any mutation in a gene when these mutations are, in fact, very variable in their effects. These complexities suggest that restrictions on the disclosure, rather than on the use, of genetic information, if it became established as a principle, could deprive insurers of information needed for risk management even if not used in underwriting.     

学货险的现状、问题与完善机制

学贷险是近几年才出现的新型保险产品,主要有国家助学贷款信用保险、生源地国家助学贷款保证保险等表现形式。虽然学贷险发展迅速,发挥了积极作用,但是在发展过程中还存在许多问题,亟需不断完善,才能发挥更大的积极作用。     

票据理财产品的运作模式、市场概况与政策思考

文章介绍了银信合作票据理财产品的运作模式、业务特征及市场现状,分析了该类票据理财产品推出的市场背景,并从监管和政策角度提出,应关注票据理财产品对货币政策调控的影响,完善票据市场制度建设,以规范银行票据业务的发展。     

Long-term thinking and the politics of reconceptualization

This essay is a response to the dominance of short-term thinking in Western culture. It begins with a critique of the minimal, or fleeting, present and then explores some possibilities for extending what might be meant by the ‘present’. It suggests that considerable utility may be derived from a more careful and considered use of particular timeframes. It is doubtful whether questions of sustainability, the rights of future generations and, indeed, the disciplined study of futures can be resolved without a number of innovations based on long-term thinking. The latter part of the essay considers two—the creation of institutions of foresight and an international programme of 21st century studies.