Search results

This study examines the effect of using a computerized decision aid on student cognitive effort and learning in the first tax course. Students at a mid-western university in the United States prepared a 1040 tax return using either paper or tax software from a given set of taxpayer information. Students using paper forms reported higher levels of cognitive effort than did students using the tax software, however, no association between self-efficacy and cognitive effort was found. A test for association between decision aid type and inferential (higher-level) learning (the third level of Bloom's taxonomy) found cognitive effort to be statistically significant. The study also found a significant interaction between cognitive effort and experience. These results suggest that paper forms, which require students to work through task processes, may be better instructional tools for helping students acquire a deeper understanding of subject matter. Although tax software provides potential benefits of increased accuracy and speed, practitioners should be aware of its limitations as a learning tool.

Auditing textbooks include summary level coverage of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct, but textbook coverage is too brief to support a strong understanding of auditor independence. Independence rules have the force of professional law for the independent auditor (PCAOB, 2015). Threats to firm independence can arise from events and circumstances such as investments in the client, loans from the client, past-due fees, contingent fees, deposits in the client, gifts and job offers. Student test results from a five-year rotation of alternative auditor independence lecture support materials demonstrate that using the actual AICPA Code of Professional Conduct reduces student performance. However, this drag on student performance was mostly offset by the positive impacts of simultaneous use of an independence decision tree developed for this chapter and tested as a teaching material for classrooms use.

The cycle in research in management accounting has been one of importing new ideas from other disciplines followed by a period of introspection when the new ideas are integrated into the fabric of management accounting research and practice. There are good reasons to believe that management accounting is again at the point where it should look outside its own research domain for new ideas.

This paper proposes several areas where management accounting researchers may find new, interesting and productive research. Within these areas a variety of specific research topics are suggested and potential research questions are raised.

The multiple performance measures in strategic performance measurement systems should be selected to represent a set of causally linked strategic drivers and outcomes. The pattern of results thus can provide information concerning the proper execution of the strategy (i.e., the performance evaluation role) and the strength of the cause-and-effect linkages assumed by the strategy (i.e., the strategy evaluation role). Unfortunately, managers’ tendency to re-evaluate the strategy when performance falls short of target is low in practice. Possible explanations include motivational and cognitive biases. We experimentally examine two decision aids, an attribution aid, and a decomposition aid, designed to help managers ease these challenges. Study 1 shows the decision aids, individually and in combination, increase managers’ tendency to re-examine a problematic strategy. Study 2 demonstrates the effectiveness of the two decision aids, when used together, under a different pattern of results and among a sample of more experienced managers.

This chapter presents two established pedagogical techniques to increase student engagement, simulations and peer assessment. The use of each technique, its benefits and drawbacks, and how content knowledge and student engagement increase are detailed. While each of the approaches can be utilized independently to create active learning environments, this chapter illustrates the potential to extend these approaches further. An overview of an MBA-level elective on competitive analysis structured around a simulation and peer assessment is presented. The result is a highly interactive and engaging course where the simulation and peer assessments achieve symbiotic benefits. Learning and performance in the simulation is enhanced by the application of competitive analyst reports which are used by peer “clients.” Assessment in turn leads to greater insights to the simulation, and subsequently higher levels of performance on both the simulation and future analysis work. Insights on these instructional methods, their limitations, and potential barriers to adoption are offered with the hope of inspiring others to utilize and experiment with novel approaches for further enhance learner engagement.

As students increasingly incur debt to finance their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially borrowers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), this research explores how student debt and social class intersect and affect individuals’ trajectory into adulthood. Based on 50 interviews with young adults who incurred $30,000–180,000 in undergraduate debt and who were from varying social classes, the findings are presented in terms of a categorization schema (income level by level of cultural capital) and a conceptual model of borrowing. The results illustrate the inequitable payoff that college and debt can have for borrowers with varying levels of cultural resources, with borrowers from low-income, low cultural capital backgrounds more likely to struggle throughout and after college with their loans.