Excel in the accounting curriculum: perceptions from accounting professors

Public accounting firms emphasize the importance of accounting graduates being proficient in Excel. Since many accounting graduates often aspire to work in public accounting, a question arises as to whether there should be an emphasis on Excel in accounting education. The purpose of this paper is to specifically look at this issue by examining accounting faculty's perceptions of Excel in public accounting and accounting education. We survey 245 faculty members at over 100 accounting programs. We find that a majority of faculty incorporate Excel in their accounting classes consistent with their perception of Excel importance. However, we find that students are not fully proficient in Excel based on faculty's perceptions. This study contributes to the accounting education literature by identifying possible disconnections between Excel skills faculty include in the accounting curriculum and specific Excel skills faculty believe new hires (i.e. recent accounting graduates) most often use in public accounting.     

Accounting education: Turning wrongs into rights in the 1980's

This article speculates upon the evolution of accounting education in the 1980's. Ideas are presented which impact upon many facets of higher education including undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs, as well as research and service. Further, institutional issues concerning the role of academics are addressed.The paper begins with “wrongs” of accounting research, education, libraries, and continuing education. Particular stress is placed upon weaknesses in educating and motivating accounting faculty to teach and have primary concern for students. Promotion, tenure, expense support, and reward structures are biased toward research and publication rather than teaching. Funding and faculty attention are not directed toward innovation in accounting education and development of university libraries as learning centers. In short, accounting educators continue to “educate for absolescence.”The paper ends with some suggestions of how to turn “wrongs” into “rights.” More than increased funding is needed. Of primary importance is a shift in attitudes and reward structures.     

Accounting “Boot Camp”

This study examines the effectiveness of a program designed to set appropriate student expectations and motivate students to put forth the necessary effort to succeed in intermediate accounting and other upper-division accounting courses. At a mid-sized public university in the Western US many students enrolled in Intermediate Accounting I (their first upper-division course) struggle with the rigor and academic demands of this course, resulting in failure rates of 30–45%. In many cases, students new to upper-division courses appear to lack a commitment to, or awareness of, the effort needed for success in the accounting program. The faculty implemented an accounting “Boot Camp” to prepare new accounting majors for the expectations of the program. This paper details the implementation of the Boot Camp and reviews its effectiveness by comparing the performance of attendees with the performance of non-attendees. After controlling for other contributing factors, the evidence suggests that attendees outperform their non-attending peers in Intermediate Accounting I. This relatively low-cost intervention should be attractive to faculty concerned about the common problem of students failing and then retaking intermediate accounting.     

Attitudes of accounting practitioners towards accounting faculty and accounting education

The purpose of this study is to assess how accounting practitioners view accounting faculty, accounting education, and the contributions of accounting faculty to the accounting profession. In general, the results of the survey indicate that practitioners have a favorable view of accounting faculty in that accounting faculty are viewed as honest, highly competent, and up-to-date, and their research as being useful to the profession. However, accounting faculty are viewed as not being very helpful in providing guidance towards solving the day-to-day problems of the practitioner. Moreover, the attitudes of the respondents towards accounting education appear related in many cases to the respondents' backgrounds, including their level of education, current position, and previous college teaching experience.     

You Cannot Judge a Book by Its Cover: The Problems with Journal Rankings

Abstract

Journal rankings lists have impacted and are impacting accounting educators and accounting education researchers around the world. Nowhere is the impact positive. It ranges from slight constraints on academic freedom to admonition, censure, reduced research allowances, non-promotion, non-short-listing for jobs, increased teaching loads, and re-designation as a non-researcher, all because the chosen research specialism of someone who was vocationally motivated to become a teacher of accounting is, ironically, accounting education. University managers believe that these journal ranking lists show that accounting faculty publish top-quality research on accounting regulation, financial markets, business finance, auditing, international accounting, management accounting, taxation, accounting in society, and more, but not on what they do in their ‘day job’ – teaching accounting. These same managers also believe that the journal ranking lists indicate that accounting faculty do not publish top-quality research in accounting history and accounting systems. And they also believe that journal ranking lists show that accounting faculty write top-quality research in education, history, and systems, but only if they publish it in specialist journals that do not have the word ‘accounting’ in their title, or in mainstream journals that do. Tarring everyone with the same brush because of the journal in which they publish is inequitable. We would not allow it in other walks of life. It is time the discrimination ended.     

The perceived availability of resources which contribute to accounting faculty productivity

This study collected evidence from administrators and faculty of accounting programs concerning their perceptions of the availability of selected resources that potentially influence faculty productivity. The objective of the analysis was to determine if there were differences in the perceptions of respondents due to their professorial rank, their employing institution (stratified into three institutional groups by highest degree offered) and/or their employment role, that is, administrator versus faculty. The results suggest that faculty perceptions are influenced more by institutional differences than by rank. When faculty were compared to administrators, the evidence indicated that administrators' perceptions of resource availability consistently exceeded that of the faculty groups.     

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.     

Personality types of accounting students and faculty: Comparisons and implications

This exploratory study presents and discusses differences found in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) types (personality preferences) of undergraduate and graduate accounting students, as well as accounting faculty members as they apply to two concerns. The first is the ability of today's accounting education programs to attract the types of students demanded by the profession. The second is the propensity of accounting faculty to expand traditional teaching modalities beyond those aimed at disseminating technical accounting knowledge. The results (using chi square tests) indicate significant differences in certain MBTI types among the groups, which have implications for accounting programs as they attempt to implement fundamental changes advocated by the profession and the Accounting Education Change Commission. The implications are discussed as they relate to accounting students who are predominantly extraverts, sensors, thinkers, and judgers, as well as to attracting and retaining a more diverse group of students. The implications of expected changes in teaching modalities are also discussed as they relate to accounting faculty who are predominantly introverts, sensors, thinkers, and judgers.     

EC Accounting Harmonisation: An Empirical Study of Measurement Practices in France,Germany and the UK

This research attempts to assess the extent to which accounting measurement practices in France, Germany and the UK are currently harmonised in the context of the major effort that has been made to promote EC accounting harmonisation. The statistical tests show that there are significant differences between France, Germany and the UK in respect of all the practices evaluated. Furthermore, the I-indices used to measure the overall level of international accounting harmony across the three countries indicate a wide and relatively low range of values.     

Competencies for the introductory accounting sequence

The purpose of this study was to examine the competencies demanded and supplied by the introductory accounting sequence. A random sample of Accounting faculty was surveyed to determine the topic coverage believed to be important to students majoring in accounting and the extent of conceptual knowledge and technical ability that accounting majors should achieve for each topic. To provide greater insight, the results of this survey were compared to the results of a survey of Finance, Management and Marketing faculty that used the same research instrument. Among the findings is that the most important competencies demanded by Accounting faculty are those related to financial accounting topics. The competencies demanded by Finance faculty are most closely aligned with those demanded by Accounting faculty, while Management and Marketing faculty demand more competencies related to managerial accounting topics. These and other findings should prove useful in the design and development of the introductory accounting sequence.     

An historical perspective on governmental accounting education

This paper presents a senior governmental accounting educator’s perspectives on how governmental accounting education has changed over the past 35 years and what we can expect for the future. Having begun my academic career during the 1970s, a period of turmoil and debate about the deficient state of governmental accounting, I look at how events of this period influenced my personal decision to specialize in governmental accounting education and how those events led to a path of dramatic improvement in governmental accounting standards, practice, and education. Key trends in governmental accounting education are discussed along with major changes in practice guidance over the years that have challenged textbook authors and faculty in staying abreast of change. The paper identifies many governmental accounting educators who have made significant contributions to governmental accounting and auditing policy and encourages current educators to seek ways to participate in the policy-making process. Finally, the paper discusses the future outlook for governmental accounting education and concludes that governmental accounting educators are well positioned to contribute to achieving the recently released recommendations of the Pathways Commission (2012).     

A tool for accessing accounting cases

The utilization of cases in accounting education has increased significantly in the past two decades and the number of sources of these cases has also grown larger. Accounting faculty wanting to use cases from these sources are hindered in their ability to do so because of the lack of a central case clearinghouse. The data collection underlying this paper is designed to alleviate this problem. A computerized database of accounting cases is offered to anyone free of charge. The intent is to provide a functionally useful index that will help faculty locate cases for use in their accounting classes. This article explains how faculty can access and use this database. In addition, cases published between 1983 and 2003 in two accounting education journals are summarized in order to provide an overview.     

US government spending,the national debt,and the role of accounting educators

This article discusses the facts associated with US government deficits and the national debt. The growing problem of government debt is unsustainable and timely action is needed to avert serious economic problems in the future. While the current picture and forecast in the future are sobering, positive change that will restore fiscal balance is possible. Government spending and national debt are significant societal problems and the solutions can be facilitated by objective, non-partisan expertise from financial professionals such as accounting educators. We have an opportunity and responsibility to educate our students and others about the significance of our nation’s financial problems. The article also encourages accounting educators to be more active in researching and discussing these issues in a broader public context. Having faculty focus on federal spending in their teaching and research is consistent with recommendations by the Pathways Commission that encourage accounting faculty to focus on issues that matter to the profession and to society. The article suggests alternative methods for sharing the issues with various student audiences.     

Accounting and finance in UK universities: Academic labour,shortages and strategies

This paper contributes to the literature on change in the higher education sector arising from massification, increased political control, international mobility and competition. Drawing on various data sources and labour shortage models, it considers academic labour in UK accounting and finance academia over the period 2000 to 2012. A disequilibrium between supply and demand is evidenced through the identification of recruitment problems, unfilled vacancies, and retirements. The impact of research assessment on faculty backgrounds is shown to result in inadequate supply of faculty with the required skills. Strategic responses to labour shortages include: increased recruitment efforts, early promotions, enhanced remuneration and reducing restrictions on occupational entry. The consequences and future implications of shortages and strategies are considered. In particular, the decoupling of research and teaching in accounting is challenging the future existence of accounting as an academic discipline. The current generation of accounting academics is also under threat – if they neither excel at research nor are professionally-qualified they risk becoming undesirable.     

美国会计博士生培养方式及其启示

优秀的会计师资是世界各国院校稀缺的人力资源,而高质量的会计博士教育是达到这一目标的首要前提。本文详细阐述美国会计博士的招生、培养、去向,为我国会计博士的培养方式提供借鉴。本文提出,我国应实行独立的博士生与导师关系,大力提高会计教师职业的市场竞争力,以期实现高质量的博士生教育,并提高我国会计研究水平。     

Knowledge base and skill development in accounting education: Evidence from China

This paper presents the result of a survey on the required knowledge, skills, and pedagogy for accounting education as perceived by accounting practitioners, educators, and students in China. Respondents generally agreed to a series of knowledge and skills that are important to the training of accounting students, although some variance exists among the respondent groups regarding the perceived importance of those knowledge and skills. The findings also reveal that the respondents were dissatisfied with the present delivery of the needed knowledge and skills. Thus it is contended that accounting education reform in China is not only necessary, but imperative. This study also makes a comparative analysis with similar studies in the US, in terms of commonalities and differences in respondents’ perceptions between the varied economic, technological and cultural environments in China and the US.     

Faculty perspectives on international taxation topics

This paper presents perspectives of accounting faculty members on the relative importance of topics that should be presented in a one-semester graduate level international taxation course. Understanding of international taxation has become an increasingly critical part of the tax and accounting practices of the big four and other major public accounting firms as well as to U.S. multinational business firms. Therefore, college and universities may find it useful to provide at least some coverage of international taxation topics in a separate course or as part of other courses in their tax and accounting programs. If a separate course is offered, an important consideration of which topics should be covered in the course, since there are more topics than can be reasonably covered in one course. This paper analyzes the responses of members of the American Accounting Association's International Accounting Section to a survey of which topics should be included in a one-semester international tax course. Results are compared with those of prior studies to determine whether and the extent to which perspectives have changed over time and based on the type of survey respondent. Findings of this paper will offer guidance regarding topic selection to the accounting faculty members who are charged with developing an international taxation course. The findings may also be of interest to anyone concerned with international business in general and taxation in particular.     

The core competency framework: a new element in the continuing call for accounting education change in the United States

Professional accounting organizations and academicians in the United States have developed numerous frameworks and reports to address changes in the profession and to provide guidance for accounting educators in the implementation of curriculum change. In 1998, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) released the Core Competency Framework for Entry into the Accounting Profession as an educational component of its CPA Vision Project. The online resource provides direct assistance to educators around the world in the implementation and assessment of the framework's recommendations. The purpose of this paper and the accompanying matrix, Comparison of US Accounting Education Frameworks with the Core Competencies, is to survey the history of contemporary American accounting education frameworks and compare earlier works with the most recent effort by the profession to recommend and institute accounting education change in the United States.     

Meta programmes for identifying thinking preferences and their impact on accounting students’ educational experience

Meta programmes are a way of indicating unconscious thinking preferences that influence how a person perceives the world, and how that person behaves and communicates with others. Meta programmes provide an easily understood language that can facilitate an understanding on the part of accounting students and faculty, of metacognitive processes, an important pre-requisite to developing the skill of learning to learn. This paper reports the results of an interview-based study which identifies 11 meta programmes important to the specific context of students’ educational experience. Meta programmes are found to affect the ability/inability of certain students to manage the educational process, a result that improves our understanding of why some students are better at coping with the demands of higher education than others. Since meta programmes are considered to operate at an unconscious or metacognitive level, raising awareness of their thinking and learning styles offers students the opportunity to influence, or change, their own cognitive processes involved in learning and therefore to enhance that learning. An increased understanding on the part of accounting faculty of their own and their students’ meta programmes offers potential for improving communication with students and designing more effective teaching and feedback strategies.