Search results

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the academic research related to the certified public accountant (CPA) exam. Our review identifies several research streams in this area, including studies that examine the effects of educational requirements and institutional and candidate characteristics on CPA exam success. In addition, we describe the CPA licensure regulatory landscape and show a general trend of lessening educational requirements among the jurisdictions over the past two decades. In the meantime, the governing bodies of CPA licensure are beginning the CPA Evolution project, a project that entails evolving licensure requirements, including the CPA exam, to meet the demands of a constantly changing business environment. We call on the CPA licensure regulators to align their jurisdictions’ educational requirements to best serve the CPA Evolution project. Lastly, we provide suggestions for future research that would assist accounting regulators, academic administrators, and practitioners during this transformative period.

This study empirically investigates whether graduate degrees (MBA, MSA and MST) earned by candidates affect their performance on the CPA exam. By examining more than half million first-time exam sittings taken during the period 2005–2013, the authors find that candidates with a graduate degree performed better on each section of the CPA exam than those who only have an undergraduate degree. In addition, the authors find that the type of graduate degree also has an effect on the CPA exam performance. While candidates with an MBA degree generally performed better on the BEC section than those with an MSA or MST degree, those with an MSA degree performed best on the AUD and FAR sections; and those with an MST degree exceled on the REG section. This study contributes to the existing literature on the determinants of CPA exam success. In addition, this investigation provides valuable insights to candidates, academics and regulators. The findings of this chapter should be useful for academic administrators as they revise their accounting curricula to prepare for the new CPA licensure model. Furthermore, the results of this study should benefit accounting regulators in determining education requirements for future CPAs.

Tax education, a subset of accounting education formed in the early 1900s, was largely ignored as a discipline until the 1970s. Over time, tax became a more prevalent part of accounting practice and the CPA examination. In 1996, the AICPA developed the Model Tax Curriculum (MTC) to give a practitioner’s perspective on how taxation should be taught in higher education. This chapter provides a history of tax education and the responses of tax educators to the MTC Task Force’s recommendations in 1996 and the revisions in 2007 and 2014. The authors surveyed tax educators five times over 23 years to get a sense of the MTC’s adoption, both in the past and future terms. The authors found that tax educators largely ignored the MTC Task Force’s recommendations. This chapter discusses reasons given by respondents for not following the MTC and offers various strategies the MTC Task Force and others might consider when recommending future tax education reforms.

The time period from the mid-1980s through 2002 is described in this series of research as a “pre-SOX” era of rapid deprofessionalization in U.S. pubic accountancy resulting in the loss of professional status. This was a period, however, when all professions were suffering some deprofessionalization. During the pre-SOX period it appears that leadership in public accountancy responded to a nearly perfect storm of changes confronting the profession with a corporate mentality of management by objectives, commercialization, and profit maximization resulting in constant and substantial net deprofessionalization greater than that of other professions. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing through 2001, some critics of public accountancy have asserted that leaders in the profession either lost or forgot what was required for public accountancy to be recognized as a profession. The conclusion stated in this paper is that public accountancy has lost its professional status in or before 2002. The reasons and events leading to this conclusion are presented and discussed. In the United States it appears as though once professional status is lost, regaining the elite status is more difficult. The question is if public accountancy can learn from history going into the substantial changes to be confronted in the post-SOX era of public accountancy and regain or at least make progress toward regaining professional status.

This chapter develops a model of professionalism via a synthesis of three extant theories from the sociology of the professions literature. Nine components or conditions of the model are used to trace the historical development of public accountancy through an Early Era from 1850 to 1929 and a Modern Era from 1930 to the mid-1980s. The conclusion is that concerted efforts over an approximate 130 year period were needed for accountancy to achieve elite professional status in the eyes of the U.S. public. The question remaining is if accountants have forgotten the history lessons on what has been required to achieve and sustain elite professional status?

This study examines the factors that influence a private institution student’s plan to sit for the CPA exam soon after the undergraduate program versus after a master’s program or never. The author examines the CPA exam factors: exam, cost, support, and career, noted by Coe (2016), and extend CPA exam literature through the examination of exam fees and review course material costs, rather than the composite CPA exam cost. From a survey of 63 accounting seniors, the author finds having 150 credit hours does not increase the likelihood of a plan to sit for the CPA exam soon after the undergraduate program. This result is different from studies that showed 150 credit hours is a barrier to taking the CPA exam. Consistent with studies that used the composite CPA exam cost, the author finds that perception of review course material as expensive negatively affects the likelihood of sitting for the CPA exam soon after the undergraduate program. The perception of exam fees as expensive positively affects the likelihood of sitting for the CPA exam soon after the undergraduate program. This result differs from studies that used the composite CPA exam cost.

Recent changes to the Uniform Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam provide an occasion to widely and broadly reflect about the longer run trajectory of the nature of this exam and about professional licensure. Based on a review of recent changes, we develop a set of general purposes served by the exam. We discuss the relative consistency between these purposes and academic values with the goal of evaluating the alignment of exam objectives with academic values. Concluding that accounting education and admission to accounting practice are not perfectly parallel, the chapter reviews the possibilities for academics to adjust our values or to alter our pedagogical practices. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, the CPA Examination makes fewer appearances in the accounting education literature than it did in the past. We offer recommendations to reduce the points of schism and propose research relevant to the problem.

The authors examined the association between accountancy board composition in the continental United States and indicators of the supply of new accounting graduates. In particular, the authors studied the association between the number of CPAs as well as the number of college educators that serve on State Accountancy Boards (SAB) and two key indicators of the future supply of future accounting professionals – number of CPA exam takers and number of accounting graduates from AACSB-accredited accounting programs. The descriptive statistics by the authors show 30% of jurisdictions have at least one accounting PhD who serves on the board, and on average 75.6% of board members are CPAs. The authors found that both the number of CPAs and the number of accounting educators on SABs are positively associated with the number of CPA exam takers as well as the number of accounting graduates from AACSB accounting programs. This suggests that accountancy board composition might be an important factor in influencing the supply of future accounting professionals. This research suggests that more strategic focus on the composition of accountancy boards is one approach that might be used to increase the supply of future accounting professionals. This observation is important as the supply of accounting graduates has declined recently and the states, NASBA, the AICPA, accounting programs and firms are keenly interested in increasing the supply of new accounting professionals in the United States.

Given the implementation of a new Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licensure exam and the CPA Evolution Model Curriculum, accounting educators must integrate more advanced skills in their coursework. We illustrate how a commonly-used project in accounting classes, which teaches technical accounting content, can address skills and competencies identified by the Pathways Commission and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and, as a result, enhance skills all business school graduates need in the workplace.

We incorporate a financial statement analysis research project under a group work format in three levels of financial accounting classes. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, we evaluate changes in student perceptions of skills and competencies important for business graduates.

We find students perceive improvement in critical thinking, problem-solving, the ability to work with other people, their understanding of the course material, and data analysis abilities after completion of the project. We also find statistically significant increases pre-to post-project in student perceptions of their knowledge, confidence, competence, and enthusiasm with respect to accounting material.

We provide an example of how educators can align a commonly-used project with the CPA Evolution Model Curriculum, yet still meet the needs of non-accounting majors and prepare all students for future business careers. Group work has been studied and similar financial statement analysis projects have been implemented in the classroom for years. We contribute by not only extending and updating this research, but also by re-evaluating a project to determine whether it meets the shifting needs of a rapidly changing profession. By doing so, we answer recent researchers’ call for research in higher education that addresses employability and workplace skills.