American Accounting Association 2006 Midwest Region Meeting March 30 – April 1 Chicago, Illinois

Friday, March 31, 4:00 p.m. to 5:40 p.m.
Concurrent session 4B - Cases (Teaching and Curriculum)

Title: Dexter Buys A Surfboard: An Exploratory Study Of The Impact Of A Classroom Activity And A Reflection Paper On Student Perceptions Of The First AIS Course

Carol J. Normand University of Wisconsin – Whitewater

ABSTRACT: One of the challenges of a first AIS course is to provide opportunities for students to understand how all of the diverse bits of information they have learned about accounting are organized into a unified whole. Although textbooks introduce material relevant to this objective, students do not really understand what they are reading. In order to help students relate prior learning to the AIS course, the author developed an in-class activity titled “Dexter Buys a Surfboard” and combined this activity with a required reflection paper. This paper describes the project in detail.

Statistical analyses found that the combination of a textbook reading, an in-class project, and a reflection paper does positively affect students’ perceptions of this importance of learning about AIS. Further analyses found that GPA, accounting-related work experience, and gender are not related to the change in student perceptions. Apparently, the combination of a textbook reading, in-class project, and a reflection paper is not biased towards or against one or more student groups. Finally, statistical analysis found that having students write reflection papers does not incrementally add to the change in student perceptions concerning the importance of the AIS course.

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