DESIGNED INTERVENTION IN ACCOUNTING HIGHER EDUCATION TO SOLVE AUTHENTIC PROBLEMS

Abstract

Accounting higher education has not changed adequately to address the rapidly changing technology landscape impacting the industry. One way to train accounting students for the future is by helping them solve authentic problems. Four component instructional design (4C/ID) can help prepare students for the changing landscape. However, it has not been used in an accounting education setting until recently. In this study, one section of an upper-division accounting course incorporated 4C/ID, whole-task instruction, in a partnership module. The same module was taught in a different section using traditional lecture, topic-centered instruction. Research questions addressed: Research Question 1. Is there a difference in accounting students’ knowledge of basic tax rules, with respect to partnership taxation, when a topiccentered instructional strategy is used versus the use of whole task-centered instruction? Research Question 2. Are accounting students able to solve authentic problems with respect to partnership taxation when a topic-centered instructional strategy is used versus the use of a whole task-centered instruction? The testing was performed during a two-week partnership module during the Fall 2019 semester. Fifty-four students participated in the two-group study; 31 students in the whole-task experiment group and 23 students in the topic-centered control group. All students took the same three tests; one test was a pre-test, which included CPA exam questions, a second test was a post-test, which included similar CPA questions to the pre-test, and the third test was a summative exam for the module, which included authentic problems. The pre- and post-tests were used to measure the students’ learning gains. Both groups had a similar statistically significant increase in their learning. More importantly, there was a significant difference between the groups when comparing the summative assessment, which included authentic problems. The experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on the authentic problems. The implication of this study is that whole-task instruction can better prepare students to solve authentic problems when compared to topic-centered instruction without compromising their performance on content based multiple choice exams, like the CPA exam. Further research could help strengthen this claim.