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

Friday, March 31, 9:40 a.m. - 10:20 a.m.
Forum Papers

Title: The Integration of Financial and Managerial Concepts within a One-Semester "Survey of Accounting" Course

John S. Rush Illinois College

ABSTRACT: Historically, most Accounting Programs have offered a two-semester sequence of introductory accounting. In many programs, the semesters are segregated between Financial Accounting (first) and Managerial Accounting (second). In other programs (frequently called Principles of Accounting), the first semester and one half are devoted to Financial Accounting, while only half a semester is devoted to Managerial Accounting.

More recently, a one-semester course (frequently called Survey of Accounting) has gained in popularity in some programs. Most of these courses, however, have continued to follow one of the two above approaches, within the context of one semester.

In this project, an integrated one-semester course was developed and then compared with the more typical segregated Financial/Managerial approach. The study evaluated the change in pedagogy’s affect on student intellectual challenge, enjoyment of the course, interest in the major, and instructor evaluation.

The results suggest there is positive value in the integration of Financial and Managerial Accounting concepts within a course.

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