Comparative evaluation of a teaching innovation in accounting education: intensive learning in a seminar format

This paper reports a teaching innovation involving intensive learning and the evaluation of that innovation. A review of the literature reveals a lack of research about how effective intensive programmes are in enhancing student learning. In this study the performance of students studying accounting during an intensive summer-school in seminar format was compared with those studying during the regular semester in a lecture and tutorial format. Performance was compared by reference to students' grades and the understanding and retention of a key concept in the subject. Student study habits and the experiences of staff and students who participated in the summer-school were also evaluated. This study concluded that summer-school students' performance was better than regular semester students in the accounting subject studied. Their performance was equivalent or better than the regular semester students in the three other subjects studied in first semester. Summer-school students demonstrated a more complete understanding of a key concept than did the students in the regular semester, with this difference sustained after two years. There was a positive response to the summer-school by those staff and students who participated.     

The first course in accounting: students’ perceptions and their effect on the decision to major in accounting

Little empirical evidence exists regarding students’ perceptions of the first course in accounting and the effect of these perceptions on deciding whether or not to major in accounting. The purpose of this study is to begin examining student perceptions regarding the first accounting course and how those perceptions relate to selection of accounting as a major. The study separately examines initial perceptions and changes in perceptions over the semester for intended accounting and non-accounting majors, and assesses the association of individual accounting instructors with changed student perceptions. We then examine the relationship between perceptual changes, final grades, and individual instructors on decisions to major in accounting. Responses from 331 introductory financial accounting students from two universities indicate that while intended accounting majors perceived the course more favorably than non-accounting majors at the beginning and end of the semester, both groups exhibited relatively positive attitudes toward the course. However, these attitudes were similarly less favorable by the end of the course for both groups. We also found evidence of the important role individual instructors play regarding changing student perceptions and selection of accounting as a major. The analyses for selection of accounting as a major indicate that the decision depended on initially intending to major in accounting, performance in the first course, and individual instructors, but not on changes in perception regarding the first course.     

Performance in first year university accounting: Quantifying the advantage of secondary school accounting

Considerable research has been conducted into the relation between students' level of previous accounting knowledge and their subsequent performance in first year university-level accounting. This study considers variables for academic performance and previous accounting knowledge in an attempt to quantify the advantage that high school accounting gives students entering tertiary business courses. The results indicate that for students entering tertiary courses with similar academic ability, i.e., obtained the same entrance score, the first year tertiary accounting result obtained by a student who studied accounting previously is between one and two grades higher than that of a student who did not study accounting at high school.     

An Exploratory Examination of the Relationship between a Short Form of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and Success in an Introductory Accounting Course: A Research Note

This Research Note examines the relationship between specific questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter personality preferences test and performance in an entry level accounting course. It develops a structural equation model linking specific questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter personality preferences test to grades obtained by majors in business disciplines other than accounting enrolled in an introductory accounting course at one mid-sized, public university located in the USA. The results indicate that six (6) questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter may be associated with success in the introductory accounting course. Those teaching an introductory accounting course may elect to take a few minutes to administer these six questions at the beginning of their first class period. Students who, through their responses to these six questions, do not demonstrate a predisposition for accounting could then be counseled as to what steps they may need to take in to succeed in the course.     

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.     

Financial Accounting Reform in Flemish Municipalities: An Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the cross-sectional differences in the level of adoption and implementation of the financial accounting reform in Flemish municipalities. For the first time ever in Belgian governments a cash-based budgetary accounting system is obligatorily being supplemented by an accrual accounting system. This study is based on an empirical analysis of municipal accounting practices and annual accounts 1995 in Flanders. The findings indicate that municipalities are coping with a lot of problems regarding transferability of business accounting and the study reveals significant factors explaining the level of compliance with the reformed accounting regulations.     

Do students’ perceptions matter? A study of the effect of students’ perceptions on academic performance

Prior accounting education literature documents that students typically associate accounting subjects with negative perceptions, but there are also recent suggestions that the stereotype of the accountant has positive associations. These perceptions of accounting are likely to affect students’ attitudes towards learning and, consequently, influence their performance. We examine the relationship between students’ perceptions and students’ performance. The present study involved undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in management accounting subjects. Our findings indicate that students’ performance is negatively affected by the negative perceptions of accounting that students bring to the subject. Our findings also suggest that positive perceptions of accounting held by students at the end of the semester have a positive impact on students’ performance.     

Raleigh building products: A teaching case that highlights the differences between IFRS and US GAAP

Within 5 years, the United States will join the rest of the world’s industrialized countries and many emerging economies in adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). However, many educational programs have not yet developed full curricula or integrated case studies in existing programs to compare and contrast how US GAAP and IFRS would record and present major accounting transactions.Based on events that reflect real world scenarios, this study presents a series of three Raleigh Building Products cases as an instrument to fill the current IFRS education void. The first case in the series discusses US GAAP acquisition and consolidation activities, the second case examines asset and intangible impairment under US GAAP and IFRS, and the last case adds components that differ significantly between US GAAP and IFRS. The series of cases can be used stand alone or build upon each other throughout the semester. The combined cases focus on the following key concepts: (1) calculating acquisition price; (2) preparing combination financial statements including deleting LIFO reserves; (3) measuring goodwill and other intangibles; (4) determining the impairment of goodwill due to economic declines; and (5) comparing fundamental differences between US GAAP to IFRS. The attached teaching notes detail these matters and discuss the statements of cash flows under US GAAP and IFRS.Results from classroom use indicate that this case will benefit accounting students and practitioners as IFRSs become effective in the US.     

Literature section

This study investigates whether secondary school accounting, mathematics and Tertiary Entrance score have any effect on the deep learning and surface learning components of the first-year university accounting examination. In addition, it examines whether these school factors have same relative predictive value in explaining the performance of male and female accounting students. Results show that while they were relevant in explaining success in the surface learning component, none of the perdictors had any significant predictive power for the deep learning component. Results also indicate that the performance of males was best explained by school accounting. On the other hand, the effect of general academic ability on female performance was greater than that of specific cognate subjects.     

预算控制与企业内部会计控制

预算控制是企业内部会计控制的重要方法之一,我国企业在从粗放管理走向精细化管理的过程中,也正在积极推广全面预算管理.在大量调查的基础上,本文认为,预算控制拓广了传统企业内部会计控制的范围,为会计控制与管理控制的有机结合提供了一个桥梁,其对保证财务报告的可靠性、企业经营活动的合法合规性及提高企业经营的效果和效率既产生了积极的作用,同时,在一定情况下,它又对上述内部控制目标产生消极作用.因此,本文在对预算控制进行正反两方面的分析后,提出了企业在实施预算控制时应注意的问题及应采取的一些措施.     

Acting in the public interest: accounting for the vulnerable

This article seeks to initiate research around the potential roles of the accounting profession for tackling the challenges of the vulnerable. Its backdrop is the current consideration of the profession’s public interest role. The importance of dialogue around the public interest role is evidenced by the increasing levels of vulnerability, even within developed countries. Accounting underpinned by broader values has potential to provide knowledge of issues relating to the vulnerable. However, the accounting profession has only engaged with such potential to a limited degree. The article overviews existing knowledge and areas within which more research is required. In order to illustrate the potential for such research, initial findings from two case studies of homelessness (an example of the vulnerable) provide evidence as to the importance, and challenges, of accounting for the vulnerable. This article highlights the need to: take a principles-based approach in defining the vulnerable, undertake an accounting that reflects the lives they value, acknowledge that there are different ways for addressing these issues, recognise that an absence of perfect numbers should not become a barrier to action, and that accounting for the vulnerable is one way that the accounting profession may discharge their public interest roles.     

Australian – USA Federal Government Accounting: Convergence or Divergence?

Despite moves toward international harmonisation of accounting standards, there is evidence that standards regulating government accounting in various countries are diverging. This paper argues that, despite their similar federal systems and ostensibly similar objectives for federal government reporting, the accounting standards of the USA and Australia differ significantly in detail. A comparison of their objectives and standards reveals that the standards particularly differ in relation to accounting for assets, and in determining the performance of a reporting entity. Although these divergences emanate from differing philosophies underlying the standards of the two countries, they have implications for international harmonisation of accounting standards, and for reciprocity agreements.     

Awareness of the public versus private accounting divide,and its impact on the career path preference of accounting students

This research assesses what knowledge upper-level accounting students possess about the distinctions between the public and private branches of accounting, as well as the influence such knowledge might have on their accounting branch choice. Overall, the study concluded that, before they were aware of the pros and cons of each career path, students preferred a career in public accounting over private accounting. But upon learning the pros and cons of each career path, however, students showed a slight preference toward private accounting. The study suggests research on accountant personality be supplemented by research on the impact of practical knowledge about private versus public accounting work environments on accounting career choice. It suggests greater importance be placed in accounting education on instilling such knowledge.     

Governmental Accounting in Spain and the European Monetary Union: A Critical Perspective

During the last twenty-five years, the changes in Spanish accounting have been radical and significant, especially since 1986 when Spain joined the European Union. Those changes were first introduced in business accounting, following the patterns of the Fourth Directive, but governmental accounting has also been affected by structural reforms that have modified the financial reporting system, the accounting standards and the accounting principles to be applied. However, the governmental accounting system needs further improvement, particularly given the EMU framework and the relationship between governmental accounting and national accounting.     

Accounting for Infrastructure Service Delivery by Government: Generational Issues

Infrastructure service provision by government creates huge distributional issues about service availability and performance over time and the relative funding burdens borne by successive generations of consumers across time. But providing financial disclosure on these issues through inter-generational accounting pre-supposes that accounting measurement is both generationally neutral (temporal neutrality) and does not legitimate any particular pattern of distribution. At the very least, accounting measurements of service provision costs should possess the attribute of distributional fairness. They should not bias the inter-generational allocation of cost or funding burdens. We argue that the forced application of inappropriate commercial accounting concepts of asset valuation, depreciation and capital maintenance does produce significant generational bias. More flexibility is required to produce the necessary accounting measurement attributes for financial disclosure on whether government has discharged its continuing accountability for inter-generational equity in burden sharing. We discuss three conceptual issues and illustrate the need for flexibility by proposing an alternative 'flow of obligations' approach which does not require reference to valuations of community service resources or arbitrary cost allocations under depreciation.     

The persistence of international accounting differences as measured on transition to IFRS

The international accounting classification literature emphasises the importance of understanding how institutional factors shape accounting regulations and practices. With the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the European Union and Australia in 2005, our empirical study examines whether three international accounting classification systems relating to equity financing, law and culture still had merit as measured on transition to IFRS and explore whether they are effective in grouping accounting systems. Using IFRS as the yardstick, we find statistically significant differences in the measurement of shareholders’ equity as between strong (Class A) versus weak (Class B) equity financing systems, common law versus code law systems and cultural systems based on ‘Anglo’, ‘Nordic’ and ‘More Developed Latin’ cultural groups. With regard to the measurement of net income, however, we find statistically significant differences only in respect of strong (Class A) versus weak (Class B) equity financing systems. Our findings demonstrate that traditional international accounting system differences still persisted at the time of IFRS adoption even after long periods of harmonisation and growing international accounting convergence.     

关于人力资源会计有关问题的探讨

人力资源会计是会计学的一个新兴的重要分支学科。它是市场经济的产物。本文首先论述了在我国建立人力资源会计的必要性。提出了在我国建立人力资源会计的设想,包括建立人力资源会计的原则,账户的设置,人力资源会计的报告。最后论述了人力资源会计在我国企业管理中的运用,在关于员工流动、关于工资、关于人力资源部门的性质和地位方面提出了自己的见解。     

A moral pespective of the 150-hour requirement

In January 1988, the membership of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) approved all six proposals that constitute the Plan to Restructure Professional Standards. Proposal VI of that plan proposed the adoption of a requirement that, after the year 2000, applicants for AICPA membership have at least 150 college-level semester hours, including a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. The additional educational requirement has widespread public policy implications as accounting educators provide or plan to provide an additional year of education for students preparing to enter the profession. Self-regulated professions, like accounting, have a major influence in deciding what good they serve and how they serve it. Moral responsibility requires accounting professionals and educators to question whether the requirement truly serves the public interest.     

关于进一步完善我国会计法律规范的思考

我国会计的法律规范是以《会计法》为核心的。从1985年1月25日第六届全国人大第九次会议审议通过的中华人民共和国第一部《会计法》颁布实施以来,至今已经二十年了。在进一步深化国企改革,大力发展混合所有制经济的今天,我国将政府会计法规体系和企业会计法规体系合二为一的立法思想、会计立法类型的选择及现行会计法律规范的权威性等问题都是值得探讨的。