The AECC Curriculum project at BYU has been completed. During the 1993-94 academic year, a third group of 240 students enrolled in the new program. BYU’s AECC project had three goals: (1) to identify the competencies needed by professional accountants in the next decade, (2) to design a curriculum to develop those competencies in students, and (3) to address the effectiveness of the new curriculum in achieving those student competencies.

To meet the first goal, identifying needed competencies, a field survey was conducted on 873 practicing CPAs in Southern California and accountants within the Marriott and Phillips Petroleum Companies. Through this survey and a careful review of other competency studies, 27 competencies were identified.

To meet the second goal, designing a curriculum that would cultivate the needed competencies, faculty efforts focused on two types of changes: (1) changing the overall structure of the accounting junior year, and (2) changing the curriculum and pedagogy within the new structure.

To meet the third goal, assessing the effectiveness of the changed program, formative evaluation was conducted as the program was being designed and implemented. An educational consultant aided accounting faculty in gathering both formative and summative data throughout the restructuring process. Through formative evaluations, adjustments to the program have been made continually, and through summative evaluation, attempts have been designed to capture the impact of the new program on students, faculty and external parties.

The change in structure of the junior year was extensive. Separate intermediate accounting, cost/managerial accounting, tax, auditing, and systems courses that had been previously taught were deleted. In their place, an integrated, team taught, 24 credit-hour core was instituted. This new core encompasses most of the traditional technical competencies and also nine of the 27 non technical or “expanded” competencies identified in the competency study. The nine expanded competencies integrated into the core are:

As the new curriculum was developed, these nine expanded competencies became part of the focus of each day’s planning. Each three-hour block emphasized one or more of these competencies in addition to the technical content. Grading was designed to weight content and expanded competencies equally. The content of the core was organized around business cycles, a pedagogical approach that had proved successful in auditing and systems courses.

The seven business cycles that form the framework for teaching the technical and expanded competencies are: (1) a foundation phase, (2) organizing a business, (3) sales/collection, (4) acquisition/payment, (5) payroll/performance evaluation, (6) conversion/inventory, and (7) financing. With the substitution of the new core, the overall structure of the entire BYU accounting program is now as follows:

Freshman and Sophomore Years
Students complete general education requirements and take pre-business and pre-accounting requirements including introductory accounting. Approximately 240 students are admitted to the School of Accountancy & Information Systems (SOAIS) at the conclusion of the sophomore year.

Junior Year
SOAIS students are enrolled in the integrated, team-taught program that involves three hours of classroom experience four days a week for the entire year. The junior year is divided into four grading blocks, each worth six semester hours of credit. Teams of five professors from the functional areas of systems, financial accounting, managerial accounting, tax, and auditing, plus a law professor and an international accounting professor team teach sections of 50-60 students each. At the conclusion of the year, students apply for the five-year, master of accountancy program (MAcc) or elect to graduate with a four-year bachelor’s degree.

Senior Year, 1st Semester
The 150 SOAIS students who are accepted into the MAcc program join with MBA and MOB (Masters of Organizational Behavior) students for another team-taught, 3-hours per day, integrated program. Professors from the functional areas of business management, finance, marketing, organizational behavior, strategy, and communications work with integrated sections of 60-70 students each. Students who elect a bachelor’s degree or who are not admitted to the 150-hour program take undergraduate, non-accounting business courses and other electives.

Senior Year, 2nd Semester
MAcc students begin to specialize in information systems, tax or professional accounting by taking specialty courses in those areas as well as business and non-business electives. Bachelor’s students complete their degrees by taking other undergraduate business and elective courses.

Fifth Year
MAcc students continue specialization in tax, professional accounting or information systems. Graduates receive both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in accounting.

Eight curriculum and pedagogical innovations were included in the new program:

1. Integrating expanded competencies instruction with technical accounting instruction.
2. Organizing and integrating technical content by business cycle.
3. Using new teaching strategies, including extensive use of student groups (cooperative learning) and teaching in three-hour blocks.
4. Grading on the basis of both technical and expanded competencies.
5. Using a business-events systems approach to teaching accounting.
6. Using a faculty team approach to planning, teaching, and evaluation.
7. Developing detailed teaching plans for each class period.
8. Using textbooks and other materials as resources rather than allowing them to drive curriculum.

Reactions to the new curriculum have been generally positive. Even though students believe they are working harder than ever before, they feel that they will be better prepared for professional life. In addition, because the program is different from other undergraduate courses of study, it has achieved an identity comparable to MBA and law programs on campus. The students’ attitude is no longer “let’s study accounting,” but “let’s apply to the accounting program.” As a result of this identity, both the number and quality of applicants have increased.

Reactions of BYU administrators also have been positive. All administrators, including the President, Provost and Academic Vice President have attended briefings on the program and indicated strong university approval and support. The President has remarked several times during the last two years that “there is no finer program on campus than accounting.”

Reactions of recruiters also have been positive. For example, a “Big 6” firm invited an accounting faculty member to its national recruiting meeting to explain the BYU accounting program, while two other firms sent delegations of partners to study and observe the program.

Reactions from faculty have been mixed. While most view the curriculum favorably, faculty have expressed concern about a number of factors: (1) the loss of autonomy and control, (2) the lack of faculty ownership of courses, (3) the labor intensiveness of the program, (4) a possible reduction in the amount of technical knowledge being learned by students, and (5) the necessity of teaching in front of colleagues in a team-teaching environment. Most faculty who have taught in the core are excited, however, and many have started to focus on expanded competencies in other classes they teach.