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: Does Writing Improvement lead to Performance Improvement?

Michael Brown Millikin University

ABSTRACT:  The Accounting Education Change Commission (1990, 308) stated, “The curriculum for general education should develop in students the capacities for inquiry, abstract logical thinking, and critical analysis.”  In this paper, this charge is applied to the first federal income tax course required of all accounting majors.

Three tax research cases were developed and given to the students at selected intervals during the semester.  The student is also given the writing rubric that will be used to evaluate the writing assignment.  The rubric contains three components: organization and content, diction and style, and language use and mechanics.  The “organization and content” component is double-weighted in the rubric.  The student is given a score on each component and an overall score.  The applicable parts of the course for this research are the three research writings and the four exam scores.

Using LiveTextâ, an online portfolio collection and assessment program, the three research writings are collected and assessed using the writing rubric.  For each student, using their first exam score as their benchmark, each research assignment is due before each of the following three examinations.  Each writing assignment is returned with comments for improvement.

 The class will be divided into two groups: those above the median average test score for the semester and those below the median.  The data will be analyzed to determine if there is a correlation between the scores on the writing assignments, both on the overall scores and the individual components, and the scores on the examinations.

At this point in time, data is being collected.  There is one writing assignment and one examination left to be completed.

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