A method and resources to support Accounting Students to think critically
Status
Completed: 20 March 2011
Project Details
A project completed in 2011, undertaken by Victoria University of Wellington, to support the use of individualised, authentic assessed learning tasks with regular formative feedback to be used, as part of an integrated set of interventions, in undergraduate and MBA financial statements analysis courses.
Aims:
The main aims of the project were to:
- identify the way students learn in accounting courses at university and on the necessary cognitive preconditions for developing critical thinking skills
- develop a series of financial spreadsheets (100) from financial information from a large number of public companies, which students will use to critically comment on various aspects of each company
- support accounting students to analyse New Zealand, Australian and UK listed companies as part of a financial statement analysis course
- support accounting students to experience high-level relevance structure, high-level conception of learning, intrinsic motivation and deep learning as necessary preconditions for them to develop their critical thinking skills.
Methodology:
The methodology used involved:
- a literature review
- focus groups of students to report on the process
- the researcher appraising the anticipated changes in students thinking critically.
Team
Martin Turner
Project Leader
Victoria University of WellingtonStatus
Funding
$10,000.00 (excl GST)
Key Findings
Key findings of the project are that:
- Assessments that are individualised (that is, different for each student), authentic (that is, deal with the real world) and involve regular formative feedback as part of an integrated set of interventions, support accounting students to experience high-level relevance structure, high-level conception of learning, intrinsic motivation and deep learning as necessary preconditions to develop their critical thinking skills.
- Drawing on previous research, the spreadsheets developed in this project are specifically designed to support the use of such assessments in financial statement analysis courses to support both change in the way students experience how they learn in an accounting course at university and the development of critical thinking skills.
Key Recommendations
Recommendations for teaching practice:
Spreadsheets available for wider use | A suite of 350 spreadsheets for New Zealand, Australian and UK listed companies are available from the author for use in undergraduate and MBA financial statement analysis courses. The author is keen to support their use in such courses throughout New Zealand and elsewhere.
Valuable resource | The outputs from this research project provide a valuable resource that could be incorporated into the teaching methods of financial statement analysis courses. They provide support to academics to develop individualised (that is, different for each student), authentic (that is, real companies) assessments with regular formative feedback (the spreadsheets have been designed to support feedback to be provided at a number of stages in a student’s analysis of their firm).
Transferable high-level learnings | The experience of high-level relevance structure, high-level conception of learning, intrinsic motivation and deep learning and the development of critical thinking skills in financial statement analysis courses (supported by the spreadsheets from this research project) may also prove to be transferable by students to their subsequent accounting tertiary courses. Thus, from this project there may be benefits more widely for the overall leaning experience of accounting students at university.
Support further research | The spreadsheets are also available to be used to support further research into the teaching of accounting at university through studies on future financial statement analysis courses using these resources, with the purpose of identifying practices that encourage and support critical thinking by accounting students in our business schools. The author is keen to engage in joint research projects across a range of tertiary institutions to research the use of the spreadsheets (as part of an integrated set of interventions in the design and delivery of financial statement analysis courses) to support accounting students to develop their critical thinking skills.
A research report prepared by Martin Turner.
(PDF, 698 KB, 22-pages).
- 20 March 2011