Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations: Volume 12

This chapter describes a student team project that involves the creation and delivery of a fundraising event business plan for a nonprofit organization. The project challenges students to become active learners and apply managerial accounting concepts associated with cost behavior, planning, and control in a realistic environment that sensitizes them to the missions of nonprofit organizations. It requires students to research and use real-world operational and financial information in a setting to which they can relate, and develops their understanding of how various business disciplines are integrated. We have used the project in introductory managerial and intermediate cost accounting courses to target specific core competencies identified as critical to a successful accounting career by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

The accounting profession has consistently called for educators to assist in developing accounting students' skills beyond technical knowledge. As a result, our institution has emphasized professional skills such as oral and written communication, teamwork, research, and time management alongside technical content. Yet, our students have had difficulty making the transition from school to work, that is, from backpack to briefcase. Specifically, they lacked a sense of professional identity and an awareness of the accounting profession's roles in business and society. To address this issue, we created a professional development program to transform students from uninformed freshmen to graduates who understand what it means to be an accounting professional. The chapter describes activities that encourage the development of a sense of professional purpose. Limited assessment of the innovation suggests increased student enthusiasm for the major as well as improved perceptions of professional success. The chapter also suggests means by which other accounting programs might reevaluate and revise their own activities to assist students as they transition to accounting professionals.

This chapter examines ethical leaders in accounting. We analyze the actions of individuals broadly associated with the accounting profession who have been presented with challenging situations and evaluate their responses to difficult circumstances. Our subjects are transformational leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to the public interest along with the moral motivation and character to persevere under challenging circumstances. By providing examples of leaders who have had a positive impact on the public accounting profession, both students and practicing accountants will learn how ethical leadership can make the profession stronger.

This chapter examines student responses to the usefulness of online course materials available through WebCT in an introductory accounting unit. Of particular importance was whether students felt that WebCT provided the key interactive opportunities for effective teaching and learning as outlined by Moore (1993). Results showed that students overwhelmingly felt that WebCT was useful and provided efficient interactions between the content and the learner. WebCT also has the potential for effective interactions between the instructor and the learner. Among learners, however, these are yet to be fully realized. Given the dearth of research in this area, the findings have implications for faculty members, students, and university administrators.

This note presents a method of teaching accounting problems involving the use of the effective interest method such as bonds, notes, capital leases, and installment sales. The method is conceptually sound and simpler than the traditional method found in current textbooks and stimulates student interest by focusing on the economics of the transaction and relating it to real-life examples.

To assess its pedagogical efficacy, the method was tested in the introductory and intermediate accounting classes. In both courses, the results indicate that students' test scores are significantly higher under the new method than the traditional method. It is hoped that this evidence of the superiority of the new method in a classroom environment will spur its adoption by instructors and textbook writers.

We explore the validity of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) scores and grade point averages (GPAs) for predicting comprehensive student performance in an accelerated-cohort masters of accountancy (MA) program from 2002 through 2009. We confirm findings of prior studies that graduate accounting student performance increases in GMAT scores and undergraduate GPAs; however, undergraduate GPA is significant only for U.S. students. International student performance is overwhelmingly explained by language ability, as measured by GMAT verbal and analytical writing scores. When performance is defined as job placement with a public accounting firm after graduation, we find no significant association between performance and either GMAT scores or undergraduate GPA. Additionally, the factors that are significantly associated with obtaining a job in public accounting differ for U.S. and international students. These findings may have implications for admission decisions and curriculum design of U.S. graduate accounting programs.

Online education may meet the needs of students who do not want to attend classes or of working adults who want to obtain a college degree. Yet an open question is whether online (OL) degrees meet the needs of employers (Adams & DeFleur, 2006; Columbaro & Monaghan, 2009). Specifically, our exploratory study investigates how professionals in public accounting firms perceive OL accounting degrees as compared to accounting degrees earned in the traditional face-to-face (FTF) environment relative to a hiring decision. To examine these issues, a survey was administered to accountants of small- and large-sized public accounting firms located in the southeast United States.

Our results revealed that public accounting professionals, in general, indicate a strong preference to hire students with a traditional FTF accounting degree as opposed to a candidate with an OL accounting degree. Even when both candidates (traditional vs. OL accounting degrees) had passed the CPA examination, public accounting firm professionals still prefer the traditional accounting degree. Yet public accounting firms were more willing to hire a candidate with an OL accounting degree from an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited university than a candidate with an OL accounting degree from a non-AACSB accredited university. Lastly, we found that the preferences for traditional accounting degrees existed across different job titles (e.g. partner, manager, senior) and different sized public accounting firms.

Because of the potential cost savings that online teaching evaluations can deliver, many universities are converting their student evaluations of teaching to this mode of administration. In this study, we examine the effects of transitioning administration of student evaluations from paper-and-pencil to online. We use data from accounting and other departments in the College of Business Administration of a large private, research university that converted from paper to online administration of teaching evaluations. We examine the average teaching effectiveness rating and response rate for instructors who taught the same course before and after the conversion. In addition, we survey a sample of accounting students to investigate their responses to online teaching evaluations. We find a significant increase in the average effectiveness rating and a significant decrease in response rate. Furthermore, we find that those instructors with lower ratings under the paper administration experience the greatest increase in ratings when the evaluations are converted to online administration. In a follow-up survey, we find that students who are highly motivated and have higher grade point averages are more likely to complete and provide higher evaluations with the online administration. We discuss the implications of our results to accounting and business education literature.