Students' beliefs,attitudes and intentions to major in accounting

This study extends the literature that uses the theory of planned behaviour in examining the factors that impact on students' intentions to major in accounting and non-accounting disciplines. A survey of a sample of business students enrolled in an introductory accounting course in a New Zealand University was conducted to gather data about their intended academic majors, and their beliefs and attitudes towards majoring in accounting and non-accounting. The results show that three factors (personal, referents, and control) are determinants of students' intention to major in accounting or other business disciplines. Further analysis revealed that the students' major intentions are influenced by important referents' perceptions. In particular, parents appear to have a stronger influence on students' intentions to major in accounting. Comparisons of differential personal perceptions by accounting and non-accounting majors revealed that accounting majors hold positive perceptions of some of the qualities of the study of accounting and the accounting profession. Significant differences were also found in the control perception between accounting and non-accounting major students.     

Formative assessment in accounting education and some initial evidence on its use for instructional sequencing

Formative assessment (FA) provides instructors and students with feedback to improve learning. Across a variety of education settings FA is one of the most effective classroom interventions for improving student learning outcomes. Yet the accounting education literature is almost devoid of any work related to FA. One barrier for developing FA in accounting education is the significant background knowledge needed to implement FA successfully. The purpose of this paper is to provide some of that background. The paper includes conceptual discussion from the general education literature to explain how FA improves learning and discussion of research that has identified features that affect the efficacy of FA practice. One of these features is how instructors use FA data to adjust instruction. An empirical study illustrates that accounting educators can use FA data to inform a decision about instructional sequencing. Instructional sequencing principles have been used to develop new accounting curricula and courses, and accounting education research has used empirical data to inform an instructional sequencing decision. The current study tests, using a sample of introductory accounting students, alternate versions of two FA tasks to determine which version is better for identifying deficiencies in student learning outcomes. Results suggest that one version of each task is better for identifying deficiencies, but an adjustment to instructional sequencing may be needed to ensure efficacy of one of the tasks, depending on how the FA practice is implemented.