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Part
II:
The Current State of Accounting Education
The
Teaching Process
Many accounting educators question university accounting learning and teaching processes on two counts: They believe the material taught and learned is inadequate, and they question the effectiveness of traditional teaching and learning methods. These educators cite complaints that many accounting graduates do not know how to communicate, cannot reason logically, and have limited problem-solving ability as public evidence of the need to change university accounting educational processes in a fundamental way.Fifty years ago, the method of lecture together with routine-problem-solving was generally used. Today, that same method tends to dominate accounting teaching methods, although class discussion in the form of teacher-question and student-answer is given more emphasis. The current pedagogy also emphasizes problems with specific solutions rather than cases with alternative solutions. As the number of authoritative pronouncements has expanded, textbooks and faculty have required students to learn more factual rules and procedures to be applied in rather rigid fashion. A primary focus in many cases has been on the acquisition of knowledge needed to pass professional examinations.
Learning theory suggests that such methods are inadequate, primarily because they are not conducive to creative thinking and do not motivate students to self-development. Textbooks are a key aid to instruction, since they involve students in self-learning and establish a minimum level of technical accounting the student must learn. Nevertheless, excessive reliance on textbooks reduces the instructor's incentive to determine constantly what each student should learn. If the teaching process centers on repeating textbook material in the classroom and demonstrating the application of that material to conceived issues, problems, and situations, then the learning process risks becoming uninspiring to capable future accountants.
Many accounting educators believe that student development deserves more emphasis in university education. They feel that the teaching process should be expanded to assure that students learn not only the technical professional accounting body of knowledge but that they also develop the ability to use that knowledge analytically, in creative and innovative ways in accordance with high standards of professional ethics. The ability to apply accounting knowledge requires that students develop pertinent skills and attitudes regarding, for example, how to become aware or sensitive to the needs of others, how to listen, how to understand management requirements, how to negotiate, and how to relate to the information requirements of the general public. At a minimum, current teaching methods need to be supplemented with discussions of concepts. Students should also be led to take active roles in the classroom, for example, through the use of cases that stimulate thinking and develop students' confidence in their professional roles and capacities.