ABSTRACT

This paper explores accounting education change in light of a tetrahedral model of learning which posits that four factors interact to determine learning outcomes: criterial measures (desired learning outcomes), characteristics of the learners (skills and prior knowledge of students), nature of the materials (curriculum, pedagogy, texts, etc.) and learning activities (student behaviors and learning strategies). The factors of the model suggest three respective ways to improve the quality of accounting graduates: attract better students into accounting programs, improve what and how students are taught after they enroll, and teach them how to learn. Changes are recommended in recruiting, curriculum, pedagogy and teaching modality, textbooks, testing methods, grading criteria, and the teaching of effective study skills and learning strategies.

General dissatisfaction with the quality of accounting graduates has been widely expressed in recent years [Liebtag, 1987; Nelson, 1989b; Inman et al, 1989]. Accounting practitioners have strongly criticized the quality of new recruits [Perspectives]. The gap between actual and desired quality has been exacerbated by the increasing complexity of the accounting profession. While the quality of entrants has allegedly been dropping, the scope of the accounting profession has been rapidly expanding into areas which demand better and more generally educated professionals [Bedford, 1987; AICPA, 1988b; Langenderfer, 1990].

This concern over the supply of high-quality entrants, which strikes at the core of the accounting profession, has prompted widespread calls for change in accounting education, with increased emphasis on developing communication, interpersonal and intellectual skills, and on broadening the knowledge base. In their 1989 white paper [Perspectives], the largest CPA firms delineated certain desired capabilities for accounting graduates (see Table 1) and laid accountabil ity squarely upon accounting educators for improving the proficiency of graduates in those skills. In response, the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) was formed [Mueller & Simmons, 1989] under the auspices of the American Accounting Association (AAA). The AECC [1990a] endorsed essentially verbatim the desired outcomes specified by the sponsoring national firms. In awarding nearly a dozen grants to universities, the AECC placed major emphasis on proposals for significant changes in curricula and pedagogical techniques in accounting programs intended to impart the needed qualifications to students.

As the AECC grant schools (and other institutions which have initiated changes) have shared their successes, failures, and challenges at seminars and conferences in recent years, it seems as though as many questions have been raised as answered. A wide variety of innovations have been tried, with mixed results. No clear consensus has yet emerged as to which changes have been more effective than others.

Comparing innovations is difficult, and many unanswered questions remain. What are the causes of the alleged inadequacy of today's accounting graduates? Is accounting education entirely to blame, or are other factors at work? What is the most effective solution? Can the desired skills be effectively taught in accounting courses? If so, should they be taught in accounting courses? Should proficiency in certain skills instead be an entry requirement for acceptance into accounting programs? Such questions suggest the need for an overall theoretical framework upon which future research can be based.

This paper will present a model from the cognition literature as such a theoretical framework. The model will be used to identify inadequacies in current approaches to accounting education and to suggest a wide variety of ways to improve accounting graduate quality. A case will be made for not only changing accounting education, but also for actively recruiting broadly- educated students with high levels of previously-developed/innate skills into accounting programs, and teaching them study skills and strategies which will prepare them for lifelong learning.

A TETRAHEDRAL MODEL OF LEARNING

As accountants consider changes in the educational process, a model of learning is needed to tie together various otherwise unconnected and potentially confounding innovations in curriculum design, course development, pedagogical techniques, student recruiting and selection, etc.

The educational literature offers several models of learning which may be of benefit to accounting educators. Needles and Anderson [1991] presented a model of accounting education based upon Bloom's [1956] taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives. Smith & Smith [1991] borrowed from Perry's [1970] scheme of intellectual and ethical development during the college years to develop an "entrophic" model of undergraduate accounting education. Others have adapted Kolb's [1984] Experiential Learning Model to accounting settings [Baldwin & Reckers, 1984; Baker et al, 1986; Baker et al, 1987].

Jenkins [1979] and Bransford [1979] proposed a model of learning which, while less specific, has the advantage of a very broad perspective of the learning process. Rather than a sequential flow chart of the learning cycle or a hierarchy of maturity stages or learning objectives, their model involved a four-sided organizational framework representing the four underlying factors which affect learning (see Figure 1). Each vertex of the tetrahedron represents a cluster of variables of a given type: characteristics of the learners, nature of the materials, learning activities, and criterial measures. Each edge represents a two-way interaction important to learning. Each plane calls attention to a three-way interaction, and the whole figure represents the four-way interaction of all the variables.

As a general framework for conceptualizing the complexities of the process of learning, the Tetrahedral Model offers significant insights into accounting education.

Figure 1

The Tetrahedral Model of Learning

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LEARNERS

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

CRITERIAL MEASURES 

NATURE OF THE MATERIALS

(Note: the figure is not available on this Web page. It is a depiction of a four-sided tetrahedron (pyramid), labeled with the four items above at each of the four corners.)

 Virtually every model, study, issue, and innovation in accounting education can be characterized in terms of one or more factors of the tetrahedron.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FOUR FACTORS OF LEARNING

Criterial measures are the standards by which learning outcomes are measured. In the context of accounting education, criterial measures may be thought of as definitions of what is meant by "quality" in accounting graduates. What are the desired outcomes of accounting education? What are the skills and knowledge needed by the entrant? Different measures lead to different results, and various stakeholders may favor different criteria. For example, an accounting professor may evaluate learning outcomes based upon graduate job placement, a student may evaluate learning outcomes based upon whether he or she passes the CPA Exam, while an employer may evaluate learning outcomes based upon levels of skills that have little relationship to either the recruiting process or the CPA Exam. In any cognitive study, criterial measures must be clearly specified by the researcher, because learning outcomes can only be understood and interpreted in the context of the "yardstick" by which they are measured and compared.

Characteristics of the learners are the individual differences in intelligence, personality, motivation, antecedent skills and knowledge, learning style, etc. brought into the learning situation a priori. The learning process is strongly affected by the degree and types of previously developed skills and knowledge brought into the classroom by the students. The implication to accounting education is that one way of improving learning outcomes is to start with better students.

Nature of the materials refers to both the material to be learned and the way in which the material is presented. This factor encompasses curriculum, pedagogy, teaching modality, texts and other materials, classroom testing and grading, teacher quality, course structures, subjects covered, etc. It is this factor which has received the most widespread attention in recent years and has been heavily emphasized in most of the grants awarded by the AECC. Some approaches to "accounting education change" include: better sequencing and an holistic organization of course content; use of the case method; technological classroom innovations; new texts and course materials; training of professors; revised testing and grading criteria; teaching critical thinking and the scientific method; and use of mentors.

Learning activities are the classroom and out-of-class learning behaviors engaged in by students. The teaching of effective study skills has been largely ignored in college education, including in the AECC grant proposals. Cognitive research has shown that learning strategies and behaviors have a significant impact on learning outcomes [Bransford, 1979]. Unfortunately, some of the most commonly used learning strategies have been shown to be remarkably ineffective [Craik & Lockhart, 1972]. The teaching of effective learning strategies in accounting courses is a promising area for future research.

Interactions between the four factors are possible. A change in one factor may affect learning outcomes not only directly, but also indirectly through its effect on other factors. For example, suppose a certain class section has higher-GPA students than another. This characteristic of the learners may cause the class to perform better on examinations than the other section. It may also cause a change in the quality and level of classroom discussions. The higher level of the class may lead the instructor to modify the lecture. Better questions may be asked by the students. The class discussion may be more insightful. In short, the students may have a different classroom experience. A characteristic of the learners thus affects the nature of the material, which in turn has an incremental effect on learning outcomes. The higher level of competition in the class may also cause the students to engage in different learning activities such as greater attention and elaboration. A higher standard of performance becomes the norm for the class, leading to greater effort, which again affects learning outcomes.

It would be rare for any single empirical study to examine all four factors in detail. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the contribution of each individual study within the larger context of the entire model. Any comprehensive evaluation of the learning process must consider all four factors; otherwise, the analysis will be misspecified and the conclusions will be confounded by omitted variables.

CRITERIAL MEASURES FOR PROFESSIONAL ENTRY:

What do the Employers Want?

When we read that the quality of accounting graduates is not acceptable, exactly what does this mean? Without an appropriate definition of "quality," there is no basis for making this claim, nor any means to measure progress in correcting it.

Conceivably, there are many possible measures of entrant quality; for example, GPA, SAT scores, years of education, reputation of the school, percentages of placements, and pass-rates on the CPA Exam are all potential standards by which quality may be measured.

Perhaps the most valid criteria for measuring the quality of accounting graduates would be those factors which predict competence and success in the accounting profession. In the absence of a longitudinal empirical study which identifies and measures the capabilities predictive of success and advancement in the profession (as well as those predictive of failure and turnover), the best surrogate may be the capabilities identified as important by accounting practitioners. Sources of professionals' opinions as to the competencies that accounting graduates should possess include Perspectives, the AECC's first position statement [AECC, 1990a], and Brigham Young University's survey of over 500 accounting professionals [Deppe et al, 1990]. Admittedly, the predictive criterion validity of such assessments may be affected by many biases and confounds. Nevertheless, accounting practitioners are in the business of making professional judgments based upon observations; their judgments of the capabilities required in the accounting profession may be expected to be professional and based upon years of observation. The fact that the capabilities identified by the largest CPA firms in Perspectives correspond so highly with those expressed in the AECC and BYU papers, (each of which represents a broad cross-section of professional accountants), and in the Bedford report, (which represents accounting academics), evidences a high degree of construct validity.

The capabilities identified in Perspectives (and with variations in terminology, the other studies as well) as crucial to success in the accounting profession are paraphrased and abbreviated in Table 1.

TABLE 1 CRITERIAL CAPABILITIES FOR ACCOUNTING GRADUATES

paraphrased and abbreviated from Perspectives

Skills:

1. Communication Skills: the ability to easily receive and transmit information, concepts and views in both oral and written form, including reading, listening, writing, and speaking.

2. Intellectual Skills: the ability to locate, obtain, and organize information; the ability to identify and solve unstructured problems in unfamiliar settings and to exercise judgment based on comprehension of an unfocused set of facts; capability for inductive thought processes, stress management, and prioritizing.

3. Interpersonal Skills: the ability to work effectively in groups with diverse members, to provide effective leadership when appropriate (including delegation and motivation), and to withstand and resolve conflict.

Knowledge:

4. General Knowledge: an understanding of history and the sciences, a broad understanding of mathematics and economics, cultural awareness, and aesthetic sensibility (i.e., a "broadly-educated person.")

5. Organizational and Business Knowledge: an understanding of the basic internal workings of organizations and the economic, social, psychological and technological forces that affect organizations.

6. Accounting and Auditing Knowledge: a strong fundamental understanding of accounting, auditing and tax, including accounting history and philosophy, as well as the content, concepts, structure and meaning of financial reporting. Also, the ability to identify, gather, measure, summarize, verify, analyze, interpret and use data to solve problems.

In its first position statement, the AECC [1990a] endorsed the above capabilities and added a seventh:

7. Professional Orientation: an identification with the accounting profession and a concern for developing its members; a commitment to lifelong learning; and the ability to make value-based judgments with integrity, objectivity, competence, and concern for the public interest.

Some of these seven capabilities are best developed prior to enrollment in accounting programs, and that attracting sufficient numbers of students with high pre-enrollment levels of these capabilities is an appropriate alternative to completely restructuring accounting programs in an attempt to impart these skills to students who lack them.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LEARNERS:

The Problem of Attracting Qualified Students

Considerable disagreement exists in the education literature over whether individual talents should be a primary consideration in education. For example, Bloom [1976] wrote that, in the past, there was a prevailing assumption that

"there are good learners and there are poor learners... It was believed that good learners could learn the more complex and abstract ideas, while poor learners could learn only the simplest and most concrete ideas. School systems throughout the world have been organized on the basis of this construct and selection systems, grading systems, and even the curriculum has been built on the basis of it... (However, recent research) has led us to the view that most students become very similar with regard to learning ability, rate of learning, and motivation for further learning - when provided with favorable learning conditions" (pp. ix-x).

Bransford [1979] observed,

"If one really believes that people have fixed capacities, the best thing to do is create an educational system that selects the most talented. This is different from a system designed to help people develop talents that they did not already have... We should not simply evaluate learners on the basis of their abilities to adapt to pre-set systems of instruction; we must instead evaluate systems of instruction in terms of the degree to which they help people learn (pp. 5-6).

Surely, communication skills, intellectual skills, and interpersonal and social skills are desirable capabilities of accounting graduates, but should they be inputs to accounting education or outputs of it? Bloom, Bransford and many other educational researchers would argue that it is inappropriate for accounting educators to select students possessing such skills but rather, that they should teach in such a way that students develop these capacities.

While the primary goal of any educational program must be to develop students' skills and knowledge, the Tetrahedral Model of education suggests that the individual characteristics learners bring into the classroom, including skills, prior knowledge, and attitudes, are critical to learning outcomes. The importance of individual differences was alluded to by the largest CPA firms:

"Clearly, pre-entry (college) education cannot bear the total responsibility for developing the capabilities discussed earlier. Each individual has inherent talents that will contribute to a successful professional career" [Perspectives, p. 9].

Indeed, it may be argued that regardless of content and pedagogical changes, the goal of producing more and better accounting graduates cannot be achieved unless sufficient numbers of students with high levels of innate and previously-developed individual talents are attracted into accounting programs. This view has been widely accepted for many years in both accounting practice and accounting education. As long ago as 1936, McCrea & Kester noted that,

"The facilities of a professional school should never be opened indiscriminately to all who may desire to enter. A school which offers training for a specialized career, by the very fact of offering, assumes a responsibility to do everything in its power to choose only those who will be found suited to that profession... Some attempt must be made to evaluate the physical, mental, moral and personal qualifications of every applicant..." [McCrea & Kester, 1936, p. 115].

Several arguments may be made in favor of such a position. First, an individual who is unlikely to succeed in the accounting profession should be screened before he or she has invested time and money that could have been better spent in training for another career. The issue is not so much whether less-competent individuals will be screened, but how and when. Presently, some are "weeded out" during the coursework, others during the hiring process, others through professional certification examinations, and others on the job. To screen before students have invested thousands of dollars and years of time in good faith, with an expectation of becoming professional accountants, is in their best interest.

Second, what of the reliability and validity of existing screening mechanisms? To what degree are they inconsistent and arbitrary? How often do they screen out individuals with high aptitude for success, and how often do they allow individuals lacking important capabilities to graduate? While recognizing its limitations, pre-screening does offer a potential advantage over existing screening mechanisms in its ability to develop and use reasonably reliable, validated, standardized measures for screening purposes.

Third, present screening mechanisms may have undesirable side-effects. For example, the filling of introductory and intermediate accounting courses with myriad technical rules to be memorized and applied in highly structured scenarios is seen by many accounting educators as a beneficial screening mechanism [Manes, 1991, p. 84]. There is no doubt that some students are screened out because of insufficient ability to perform such tasks; however, perhaps other, capable individuals are self- screened out of accounting because of a negative affective reaction to such tasks. If true, such individuals are not only lost to the accounting profession, but as they pursue careers in business, they may alter their perceptions of the accounting profession, and perhaps of the value of accountants' counsel and even of the usefulness of accounting data.

Fourth, in an environment of scarce academic resources, the alternative to pre-screening is either to spread resources more thinly across greater numbers of students, resulting in a lower quality of education for all (larger classes, etc.), or an arbitrary allocation of resources (students are accepted based upon a lottery or by some other means). Accounting educators have a fiduciary responsibility to utilize the resources with which they have been entrusted in the most efficient, effective manner possible. Present inefficiencies are evidenced by the fact that only a very small percentage of individuals trained in accounting programs go on to become licensed professionals, as compared to students trained in other professional disciplines such as engineering, medicine, and law.

The Decline in the Quality of Accounting Majors

According to practitioners, in the years since the mid- 1970s, the quality of accounting graduates has decreased significantly [Inman et al, 1989]. This change does not appear to have been caused by a deterioration in accounting instruction (nature of the materials), which has remained unchanged for six decades [AAA, 1986]. Rather, the change in learning outcomes appears to have been driven by changes in characteristics of the learners.

A perception exists that, in the past, a very high percentage of the best students selected accounting as a major, but that this percentage has dropped dramatically in recent years. Collins [1987] reported a growing concern that accounting programs are no longer attracting the "best and brightest" undergraduate students. Dean Burton, former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said, "Accounting is no longer the preferred career choice for the brightest students at the undergraduate college level" [ibid, p. 52]. Whereas 20 years ago, accounting majors had comparatively high SAT scores, accounting majors now have SAT scores lower than those of other majors [Inman et al, 1989].

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the quality of learning outcomes was driven largely by favorable characteristics of individuals who selected accounting as a major; as those characteristics deteriorated, the result was a dramatic decrease in the capabilities of the graduates. This disturbing develop ment occurred during a time when increased capabilities were needed because of the expanding profession [AAA, 1986]. The problem was exacerbated by declining enrollments in accounting programs and increasing demand for graduates. During the 1980s, demand from public accounting for new recruits increased more than four times as rapidly as growth in the supply of accounting graduates [Perspectives; AICPA, 1991b]. In 1977, there were nearly three accounting graduates for every entry level public accounting position; in 1987 there were less than two [Inman et al, 1989, p. 31]. The result: a decrease in the ability of employers to "be selective in the recruiting process, which adversely affects the quality of new hires brought into the profession" [Perspectives, p. 2].

Both practitioners and educators are concerned by this trend. The largest CPA firms observed,

"The decline in (enrollments) may not be a significant issue if the resulting pool of graduates exhibits exceptional quality. However, there is some evidence that this may not be the situation, based on indicators such as scores on college entrance examinations" [Perspectives, p. 1].

Russell E. Palmer, former dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and former CEO of Touche Ross, argued,

"The profession is not confronting its most serious challenge - too few of the best young people are entering the profession... My primary concern is not relative to quantity but whether the best people are entering the profession. I feel the answer increasingly may be no" [Collins, 1987, p. 56].

Francis Bonsignore, head of Price Waterhouse human resources, declared, "The reality is that there are too few good people entering the profession" [Liebtag, 1987, p. 76]. Nelson [1989b] asserted,

"Yesterday accounting majors were disproportionately represented among honors graduates, and CPA firms tended to recruit from the top one-third. Today top students head in other directions - in particular, toward finance and information systems. What to do about it is an issue that strikes at the very core of the profession" (p. 46).

Why are we losing the best and brightest students? Several recent studies have found that accountants suffer from an inaccurate and extraordinarily bad stereotypical image among high school and college students [Deines, 1989; Deines & Pallett, 1989; Mapp et al, 1990; USC, 1990; AICPA, 1991a; Nelson, 1992], suggesting that poor attitudes toward the profession may cause many highly qualified persons who would make great accountants to not even consider a career in accounting.

This image problem has been the focus of much recent activity. One of the twelve "Strategic Thrusts" named by the AICPA Strategic Planning Committee to guide the profession into the 21st Century is to "work aggressively to attract qualified people into the profession" [AICPA, 1988b]. To accomplish this, the AICPA has developed a comprehensive marketing campaign directed to the "best and brightest" [Price, 1989] students at all levels: middle/junior high schools, high schools, and colleges/universities, as well as career-changers. The campaign, which includes MTV-style videos and slick brochures, was developed by a professional marketing firm. An interactive, CD- ROM-based recruiting program is in the developmental stages.

However, the videos, brochures and computer programs will do no good unless students see them. The AICPA can only work on a macro level. Accounting educators, on the other hand, have daily access to individual students. One possible forum for recruiting efforts is the introductory accounting course at the college level. Baldwin and Ingram [1991] observed,

"Each year, more than one million students enroll in elementary accounting courses at community colleges and universities all across America... Because elementary accounting is often the first business course, our discipline has a built-in recruiting advantage for attracting the best and brightest students. If our elementary courses were dynamic, relevant, and intellectually stimulating, we should attract the finest minds entering the business school..." (p. 2)

However, there is evidence that elementary courses as presently taught have the opposite effect [Nelson, 1992]. Because of its effect on characteristics of the learners through attracting certain types of students into accounting programs, the introductory course may be the most important course in the curriculum in terms of affecting the quality of accounting graduates. Therefore, the introductory course sequence should be critically examined and changed so as to dispel the myths and recruit good students into accounting programs. The AECC [1992] urged,

"The first course (in accounting) has even more significance for those considering a career in accounting and those otherwise open to the option of majoring in accounting. The course shapes their perceptions of (1) the profession, (2) the aptitudes and skills needed for successful careers in accounting, and (3) the nature of career opportunities in accounting. These perceptions affect whether the supply of talent will be sufficient for the profession to thrive" (p. 249).

NATURE OF THE MATERIALS:

What and How Should We Teach?

This section will examine the nature of the materials to be learned in accounting education, including: content and curricula; pedagogy; textbooks; and testing and grading.

Content and Curricula

To maximize learning outcomes, it is imperative that accounting educators teach students the specific skills and knowledge needed for success in the accounting profession (i.e., communication skills, intellectual skills, interpersonal skills, general knowledge, organizational and business knowledge, accounting knowledge, and professional orientation.) Further more, to attract bright students, the classes must adequately simulate the challenging environment of the CPA profession. How ever, at the present time, the focus of virtually all accounting courses is on technical, rule-laden aspects of accounting knowledge.

Admittedly, the accounting profession is extremely complex and its body of knowledge is expanding rapidly. In the past, accounting educators automatically assumed that it was their responsibility to teach all this domain-specific information to the students [Nelson, 1989b]. But is such technical cramming the proper domain of a university education? More than six decades ago, Whitehead observed,

"The way in which a university should function in the preparation for an intellectual career, such as modern business or one of the older professions, is by prompting the imaginative consideration of the various general principles underlying that career..."

If Whitehead's view is correct, accounting educators need to rethink this issue. Sheer memorization of a set of rules that will become outdated almost as soon as students receive their diplomas does little to prepare them for professional life. Too often, the content of an accounting course is dictated by its coverage on the CPA Exam. Williams [1991] observed,

"None of us can deny the enormous influence professional examinations, especially the CPA examination, has had on accounting education in the United States. But we must break this chain."

The current state of affairs has prompted some to question whether accounting as it is presently taught, is even a proper subject for a university curriculum [Zeff, 1989]. This was the point of the managing partners of the largest national firms in stating:

"Passage of the CPA exam should not be the goal of accounting education. The focus should be on developing analytical and conceptual thinking - versus memorizing rapidly expanding technical information." [Perspectives]

Likewise, the AECC [1991] urged a "decoupling of academic studies and professional examination preparation" and stated,

"Accounting programs should not focus primarily on preparation for professional examinations" [1990a].

Likewise, the AAA Changes in Accounting Education Committee [Smith et al, 1989] argued that the CPA examination must be separated from accounting education. They recommended that university CPA exam review courses be discontinued and urged teachers to refrain from the overuse of CPA questions on exams and "teaching to the test." They further suggested that the exam be moved to an annual administration in early August, with a requirement that the candidate have completed his or her degree before sitting. Such a change is also endorsed by Schultz [1989], Williams [1991] and others. Higley & Baker [1987] noted that no other profession (architecture, legal, medical, etc.) has the large number of university-sponsored licensure examination review courses that are presently available for CPA exam candidates.

These scholars, along with the Big Six [Perspectives] and the AECC [1990a], view learning as a lifelong process. (Because the technical domain is ever-changing and expanding, it needs to be studied continuously throughout a professional's career.) They believe that a university education cannot, and should not try to, impart all technical knowledge in the domain. In fact, they view the CPA exam as something graduates may properly study for and pass after graduation. Commercial CPA examination review courses are available which use intensive rehearsal techniques to prepare candidates for the exam. In contrast, the primary focus of a university (pre-entry) education should be on developing the skills that will be useful and necessary to succeed in the dynamic world of public accounting. Little wonder accounting graduates are falling short of expectations; by focusing exclusively on technical aspects of accounting knowledge, accounting academics are ignoring the development of five of the six criteria by which graduates are judged upon entry into the profession!

It is imperative that the curricula of accounting programs and the course content of accounting classes be restructured to include solid theory, content and experience in each of the domains identified as critical to the profession. In this context, the need for additional education past the baccalaureate becomes obvious. However, it would be a critical mistake to assume that the additional educational hours should be exclusively devoted to accounting courses. Cramming already narrowly-educated accounting students with 30 more hours of specialized courses will not accomplish the goal of giving them a broad and deep general education. On the contrary, most of the additional hours should be in liberal arts courses that can develop students' cultural awareness. In addition, more courses in general business should be included, particularly in management and organizational behavior, to develop students' understanding of organizations.

Accounting course content must be completely restructured, taking into account modality, structure, logical sequencing of materials, and conceptual difficulty. Content should include less technical memorization and more emphasis on abstraction and communication skills. There should be a correspondence between classroom activities and real-world issues and problems; courses should simulate the real-world environment as closely as possible, in order to best prepare students for the types of activities and problems they will encounter in the profession. In sum, there should be more depth of coverage, even if its cost is a reduction in breadth. Fewer subjects should be explored more completely and deeply, rather than every subject being included in a whirlwind overview.

Task analysis and proper sequencing of topics can improve the efficiency of classroom time use. Task analysis also can be used to divide major subjects into sub-groups, which then can be properly sequenced. By properly sequencing topics by level of complexity, students can achieve maximum understanding of the material in a minimum amount of valuable classroom time [Byrd & Byrd, 1987]. The level of complexity must be optimized for the knowledge level students are at; for example, Edmonds & Alford [1989] demonstrated that limiting the number of elements used during the introduction of the accounting cycle had a positive effect on performance in an elementary course.

Pedagogy

Effective materials presentation and classroom activities are critical to learning outcomes. Many different suggestions for innovations to teaching have been proposed, including self- paced, modular methods; personalized systems of instruction; media; computers; case studies; contract learning; field experience; simulations; competency-based instruction; and peer teaching [Gross & Gross, 1980].

In a study of 8,895 students, Saunders [1978] found a consistently positive and statistically significant association between instructor ratings and learning outcomes. He also reported evidence that instructor behaviors which influence learning outcomes and instructor ratings are identifiable and improvable. These behaviors include dramatic presentation, clarity of speech, clarity of intent, clarity of expectations, etc. Nelson [1992] reported that instructors can also make a difference in students' attitudes toward accounting.

The lecture-and-problem-solving format so common in accounting courses is of limited use in developing students' cognitive skills. Subotnik [1987] argued for the adoption of the legal education case method, where the focus is on core postulates, the reasons for their existence, and the trade-offs involved. Anderson et al [1990] found that students instructed with cases outperformed those taught with examples who, in turn, outperformed students taught with concepts.

How can technology best be used in accounting education? Concern has been expressed that computer-aided instruction may focus even more emphasis "on the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge, (which) produces graduates with an underdeveloped ability to think and to apply that knowledge effectively outside the classroom" [Borthick and Clark, 1987]. These authors called for research on the effects of computer use in accounting education to determine the extent of learning effects associated with computer use. Conversely, Schultz [1989] argued that

"Three hours of interactive, computer-generated instruction in a computer lab, for which students might receive on credit-hour, would free up a significant amount of classroom time for the treatment of those issues and the development of those skills that cannot be treated or developed by computer."

This was the philosophy of one of the AECC grant schools, Arizona State University, which developed a software program for elementary accounting courses with the philosophy that using computers to teach the technical aspects of bookkeeping would free up class time for higher-order learning [Williams & Sundem, 1991]. In any case, it is clear that the use of computers in the educational process is increasing. Computer use includes cases [Fetters et al, 1986]; CD-ROM reference libraries; real-world artificial intelligence and expert systems [Dorr et al, 1988; Böer & Livnat, 1990]; spreadsheet programs, databases, general ledger packages and statistical sampling [Edmonds, 1988]; and interactive tutoring and computer-aided instruction [Roufaiel, 1988]. Even mainframe Compustat projects for Masters students have been advocated [Dugan & Zavgren, 1988].

There are many issues regarding cognitive maturity and style that should be considered by accounting educators in restructuring accounting programs. Baker et al [1986] administered the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) to 110 senior accounting majors and found remarkable heterogeneity in preferred learning styles. The LSI categorizes individuals into four types by the predominance of their learning preferences. Although the mean learning style of the students fell in the same quadrant as the mean of most professional accountants [Collins & Milliron, 1987], less than 40% of the students actually shared this preferred learning style. Approximately 20% preferred each of the three other learning styles, respectively. Moreover, there was great dispersion within each quadrant, indicating extreme diversity among the students' preferred learning styles.

This diversity has important implications for accounting education. Baker et al stated,

"The fact that an association does exist between individuals' preferences for learning situations and their learning styles means that an instructor may have to provide a variety of learning situations to a class in order to facilitate the learning process of that class. It also means that no one method satisfies all students in the class. If a class has a mixture of persons from each of the four learning stages, the instructor must present a diversity of learning situations."

Accounting instructors must be mindful of their natural tendencies to use pedagogical techniques that fit their own preferred learning styles and to doubt the value of other learning styles. We must overcome this bias and recognize the mixture of learning strengths and weaknesses of students in each class and select a mixture of teaching methods that best match their strengths, even if such methods are uncomfortable or intellectually unrewarding to the instructor.

Textbooks

Accounting textbooks need major revision. Most accounting texts have lost touch with the real world. In a day when virtually all general ledgers are all on computers, most texts are still written as if they were still in big, leather-bound books with green pages. Even texts with chapters on computerized systems persist in presenting the manual techniques described in texts of 50 years ago. Accounting textbooks should portray the domain accounting as it really is: an important economic information system which operates in a dynamic, exciting environment, complete with uncertainty, ill-structured problems, political and ethical considerations, and trade-offs which involve professional judgment. Texts should convey the importance of accounting data which is used by millions of people to make meaningful decisions. Subotnik [1987] lamented,

"Our textbooks... have become more like reference works than true teaching guides. Authors seem to feel responsible... for covering an ever-increasing body of accounting rules rather than developing a full understanding of underlying accounting principles, upon which intelligent rule-making and applications ultimately depend. Thus, at the end of an education in accounting, the student has an exposure to a wide array of seemingly isolated rules but lacks on overview of the purpose and the economically universal domain of accounting..."

Similarly, Zeff [1989] censured accounting texts, saying,

"Beginning with the textbook for the first financial accounting course and continuing through the intermediate and advanced accounting textbooks, the subject is offered as if a tedious catalogue of practice were being inputted into computer memory. Accounting is not presented as an interesting subject... but instead as a collection of rules that are to be memorized in an uncritical, almost unthinking way. Typically, a problem facing the profession's practitioners is asserted (not argued), the official solution is exposited, journal entries and sample financial statements illustrating the official solution are presented, and the students are then put through the hoops of numerical problems that test their capacity to apply the official solution to hypothetical situations. Authors do not ask why the problem arose, why the official solution was preferred over alternatives (and what were the alternatives?), and whether the official solution spawned any further problems. More often than not,... the official solution is not even subjected to evaluation or criticism."

"Accounting textbook authors should expose themselves to the educational psychology literature regarding textbooks. A wealth of empirical studies have explored how texts can be improved to better facilitate the cognitive functions of attention, organization, and elaboration of information, which are essential to learning" [Mayer, 1984].

Testing and Grading Criteria

Testing methods and grading criteria are some of the most important determinants of learning outcomes. To a large degree, students learn exactly what they are required to learn in order to pass the course. If the thinking skills desired of graduates are not explicitly tested, students will consider them irrelevant [Mayer-Sommer, 1990]. Thus, measures used to assess student performance during the educational process are of critical importance in determining the outcomes of accounting education. The grading criteria serve as a catalyst which motivates learning.

Problems and exercises in accounting textbooks and questions in test banks persist in raising questions that are merely highly structured "puzzles." The issues are already framed for the student and there is "one right answer." Most tests fail to recognize the very existence of ambiguity as an element in accounting [Subotnik, 1987]. Shute [1979] found that in a sample of 685 accounting examination questions, 94.2% required only concrete-operational reasoning ability (mostly concept and fact memorization or direct application of a simple algorithm) and therefore required no abstract reasoning.

The time-pressured, multiple-choice, "cookbook approach" examinations that prevail in existing accounting courses completely fail to test for higher-order thought processes. A bright student can do well on most accounting exams by simply cramming on the night before the exam, but this does not develop his or her intellectual skills at the level needed for success in the profession.

If the profession were satisfied with individuals who can sort through four short, well-structured alternatives and identify the "right answer," then multiple-choice examinations would be the way to go. However, because the profession expects entrants to "be able to use creative problem-solving skills in a consultative process," "solve diverse and unstructured problems in unfamiliar settings," and "comprehend an unfocused set of facts" [Perspectives], excessive use of multiple choice questions on examinations is not only inappropriate, but counterproductive.

According to Bloom's Taxonomy, there are six levels of test questions: objective knowledge (parroting), comprehension (say it in your own words), application (do it), analysis (identify parts/explain relationships), synthesis (use knowledge from multiple fields to solve a unique problem), and evaluation (determine relative worth). Most accounting examinations get stuck in the first three levels and thus test only for declarative knowledge. Questions on accounting examinations must begin to test for conceptual knowledge at the top three levels, because the higher the question is on the taxonomy, the more likely it can and will be transferred to something outside the classroom. In short, testing methods and grading criteria must be completely restructured to reflect desired learning outcomes.

Another issue regarding testing is whether copies of past examinations should be guarded or open. Educators generally prefer to keep test questions confidential as a matter of convenience. However, Wright [1986] found that under a policy of making prior examinations available to students showed a higher level of satisfaction, believed they learned more, gave higher instructor evaluation ratings, felt that grading was more fair, and demonstrated greater interest in the topic than under a restrictive test policy where prior examinations were closely guarded and not made available to students.

Grading criteria must give significant weight to the desired capabilities. For example, points earned on essays can be graded on both subject content (50%) and communication (writing style, language mechanics - 50%). Grades for group projects and presentations can include points for oral delivery, use of visual aids, professional dress, group cohesiveness, etc. Points for attendance at outside professional meetings (BAP or IMA, etc.) and a library research project which exposes the student to current issues in the field can also be included in the grading scheme.

Summary: Nature of the Materials

Schools and departments of accounting may take a cue from other professional schools in regard to skill mastery. For example, we would certainly expect that a student in a school of dentistry would be required to master the skills of that profession before graduation. Such students are required to practice giving novocaine shots and filling cavities again and again until they are proficient in these skills. Similarly, accounting educators must require students to master the skills required for success in the accounting profession:

1. Communication Skills. To learn to write well, students must write. Term papers and essay examination questions should be required in every accounting course. To learn to speak well, they must speak. Class presentations and discussion, including criticism and defense, should become an integral part of every accounting class. These activities must be given substantial weight in grading criteria [Ingram & Frazier, 1980].

2. Intellectual Skills. Students do not learn abstraction and induction by memorizing professional standards. To learn to solve diverse and unstructured problems in unfamiliar settings, students must have practice in these types of tasks. Thus, classroom activities and examinations must go beyond procedural and declarative knowledge and begin to develop and test for conceptual knowledge and the ability to deal appropriately with ambiguity. Case studies which require higher-order thinking are needed in most accounting classes.

3. Interpersonal Skills. To learn to work with other human beings, students should be required to work together as teams with diverse members on simulated, real-world projects. Again, these projects should be an integral part of every accounting class. Students should be rotated in and out of leadership roles so that each student gains experience in both leading and following. Such projects should be given substantial weight in grading criteria.

In addition to these skills, the successful graduate must possess the knowledge needed for success in the accounting profession. To master that knowledge, accounting majors must be exposed to a much broader curriculum than that currently offered at most universities:

4. General Knowledge. General knowledge is best taught through general education. As already stated, additional hours are needed in liberal arts courses.

5. Organizational and Business Knowledge. Again, additional courses are needed in general business. Additionally, the scope of accounting courses must include the business context and behavioral implications of various accounting treatments.

6. Accounting Knowledge. The teaching of accounting knowledge needs a major change in focus. Rather than preparing students for professional examinations, the technical aspects should be limited to a strong fundamentalunderstanding of accounting. Accounting educators must recognize that learning is a life-long process, and that they can never hope to impart all the accounting knowledge there is. Instead, they must go beyond the construction of data and begin to teach students the underlying concepts and interpretation.

Finally, accounting education content and instruction must prepare students to be professionals:

7. Professional Orientation. To develop capabilities for judgment, students must be exposed to ethical issues and be taught how to apply a value-based reasoning system. While principles of moral development and reasoning can be taught in special ethics classes, they should also be taught throughout the accounting curriculum. If students learn how to apply moral and inductive reasoning in as many contexts as possible, they will be more likely to activate these processes later, on the job. Thus, they must become an integral part of each course in the accounting program.

We will now examine the fourth factor of learning, learning activities.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

Can We Teach Students How to Learn?

The fourth factor of the Tetrahedral Model of Learning is learning activities; the kinds of behaviors engaged in by the learner when presented with information. For example, do they attend to the information? Are they marginally attentive, or are they totally engrossed? Do they merely rehearse the information in short-term memory, or do they use more effective techniques to encode information into long-term memory?

Many accounting educators assume that by the time a student reaches their classroom, he or she already knows how to learn. Unfortunately, this is most often not the case. Despite a vast literature on the nature of learning, virtually all K-12 teachers continue to perpetuate falsehoods about how children learn and to teach children to use ineffective and counterproductive learning strategies. Little wonder then, that most college students have poor study skills; no one has ever taught them how to learn.

One of the main points of the AECC's position statement [1990a] was that accounting educators must begin to fill this deficiency:

"The overriding objective of accounting programs should be to teach students to learn on their own... Students should be taught the skills and strategies that help them learn more effectively and how to use these effective learning strategies to continue to learn throughout their lifetimes."

That's a tall order for accounting educators, most of whom have had virtually no training in educational psychology and who themselves don't have any idea what skills and strategies should be taught. Presently, PhD programs in accounting not only fail to encourage courses, training and research in learning processes and teaching methods, they actively discourage it. PhD students who thought they were entering a program to learn how to become a master teacher of accounting soon find themselves in an environment almost hostile to any predisposition towards wanting to learn how to teach and how students learn. Those few who express an interest in educational psychology as an outside area or propose a dissertation on an education-related topic are strongly advised to pursue more acceptable fields of study. The typical approach to preparing PhD students for teaching is to assign them to teach an elementary course and say, "Here's the book, and there's the door." Patten & Williams [1990] observed,

"Unfortunately, doctoral students have gotten the message that teaching is unimportant to career success. They are ill-informed about educational issues, and are indoctrinated to believe that educational research and program development activities are to be avoided at all costs."

As a result, teachers at the bottom end of the educational ladder often have far more training in teaching and learning than those at the top. How ironic it is that a graduating elementary education major planning to teach first grade knows more about teaching than a graduating PhD in accounting. The AECC [1990a] stated,

"Faculty must be trained to apply appropriate instructional methods. Doctoral programs therefore should give more attention to teaching methods."

Accounting educators must begin to familiarize themselves with the large cognitive psychology literature. Mayer-Sommer [1990] wrote,

"As accounting educators we cannot afford to ignore the specific knowledge domain and related cognitive and metacognitive skills associated with pedagogy."

Current developments in the field of cognition and learning are extremely interesting and exciting. For many years, behavioral psychology, which ignores cognitive processes and merely observes learning inputs and outcomes, dominated the literature. In the last decade, however, a new breed of cognitive psychologists have attempted to examine what actually happens during the learning process, and to discover why some people are more effective learners than others. This literature has yielded a model of human learning called the Information Processing Model (see Exhibit 2.) According to this model, a person's senses send vast quantities of raw information to the sensory memory, which is very clear and can hold enormous amounts of data but which fades rapidly; it only lasts for one or two seconds. The person then chooses to pay attention to only a few bits from this vast menu of sensory information, which is then transferred to short-term memory (STM). STM is the conscious, thinking part of the mind. It has a very limited capacity and also fades fairly quickly; it can only hold about seven bits of information at a time and normally lasts for only about 10-15 seconds. The process of transferring information from STM to long-term memory (LTM) is called encoding. LTM has an infinite capacity and lasts a lifetime, but is not as accurate as sensory and STM. Learning is successful when the proper information is attended to, encoded into LTM, then retrieved back from LTM into STM when it is needed.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to review in more depth the voluminous literature on human information processing. The reader is referred to Bransford [1979], Anderson [1983], Andre [1986], and Mayer-Sommer [1990] for basic information on the information processing model, rehearsal (an ineffective learning strategy), organization and elaboration (extremely effective learning activities), the role of attention in learning, etc. Suffice it to say that many studies have confirmed that some learning behaviors are more effective than others in encoding information, and that these behaviors can be taught to students.

Self-actualization in learning is known as metacognition[Duell, 1986]. Metacognitive individuals are aware of their own learning processes. They understand what they know and just as importantly, the limitations on their knowledge. They take responsibility for their own learning. They engage in self- regulatory control strategies to monitor their learning [Glazer, 1990]. Flavell [Borthick & Clark, 1987] wrote,

"Metacognition refers... to the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of (cognitive) processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective."

Metacognition can be taught and learned. Students can be taught how to learn concurrently with learning the course subject material. When the principles of metacognition are taught throughout the curriculum, this is known as metacurriculum. Adopting the principles of metacurriculum in accounting programs would accomplish the exhortation of the AECC [1990a] to prepare students for lifelong learning.

There are many different learning strategies that can be employed in various settings which can improve the learning process. The use of spatial learning strategies can enhance the learning of the technical aspects of accounting, freeing mental and time resources for higher-order processes. For example, Wilner [1987] demonstrated a spatial teaching aid to teach process costing. Presenting information with matrices has been shown to enhance retention by allowing the learner to make "internal and external connections" [Kiewra, 1989]. Internal connections (also called "organization") are made when the student sees the relationships (contrasts, similarities and processes) between the various elements within the material itself, so that it is organized and coherent. External connections (also called "elaboration") are made when the student recognizes similarities and contrasts between the material being learned and other subjects already known. An effective variation of matrices is the use of "advance organizers" [Kiewra et al, 1990]. A skeleton matrix is distributed at the beginning of a lecture, and students are required to complete the matrix during the lecture. This focuses students' attention on the main points, assisting the encoding function.

Thus far most efforts directed at improving the quality of accounting graduates has been on the nature of the materials (curriculum and pedagogy - AECC) and characteristics of the learners (recruiting the "best and brightest" students into accounting programs - AICPA.) However, almost no consideration has been given to learning activities, the third factor in the tetrahedral model. Clearly, accounting educators need to familiarize themselves with this factor and include it in the accounting education change movement.

SUMMARY:

Conclusions and Suggestions for Future Research

A Tetrahedral model of learning has been presented as a framework for accounting education. Each of the four factors in the model has been examined as it relates to the current state of accounting education. Recommendations suggested by the model have been made which if implemented, will result in higher quality accounting graduates. Such improvements are critical because the expanding scope of the accounting profession necessitates more broadly educated entrants.

It has been said that "it is easier to move a mountain than to change a college curriculum" [Nelson, 1989b]. If that is true, it's time to break out the shovels. If the profession is to successfully compete, and even survive, in the 21st Century, fundamental changes in the way we recruit and train entrants musthappen. With rapidly deteriorating traditional distinctions between professions and increasing worldwide competition in all fields of information processing and communication, if the accounting profession fails to successfully compete for bright students and fails to adequately educate them, it is inevitable that the business world will turn to other sources for the information and attest functions. Furthermore, if the quality of the members of the profession deteriorates to the point where the quality and integrity of services are adversely affected, public and political pressure may lead to more government regulation and perhaps even to the assimilation of the audit function into the public sector [Westra, 1986].

It will take the full commitment of both practicing professionals and accounting faculty to overcome the status quo and get the changes in place. The AECC was never intended to be an end in itself, but rather a catalyst to stimulate change in all accounting programs. As the successes and failures of the AECC grant schools are reported, there is a danger that the momentum for change will diminish.

Money talks, and the ten AECC grants were a good start. However, they were but a foretaste of what must be spent to "move the mountain." Schultz [1989] observed,

"External funding is critical. Without external funds oriented toward curriculum development, it is highly unlikely that faculty will make the huge investment of time and energy that these innovations would require."

In addition to providing financial support specifically for curriculum and course development, practitioners must also become actively involved in lobbying accreditation standard-setters, business school deans and college administrators for radical changes in tenure and promotion policies to reward curriculum design and teaching excellence [AECC 1990b].

It is time for the best minds in accounting education to put aside some of their ivory-tower capital markets research and place some serious emphasis on teaching, curriculum, and course development. Quality research is urgently needed in instructional methods and design. New courses must be designed and old courses overhauled. New texts must be written and old texts revised.

Better teaching will not come easily. Developing conceptual test questions is not as simple as pulling questions from a test bank. Designing real-world classroom activities and grading essays take time and effort. Accounting faculty must be trained in teaching methods, information processing, and cognitive development. PhD programs must begin to prepare future professors for teaching, not just statistics and research. Schools and departments must do more than pay lip-service to teaching and begin to provide real rewards, including tenure and promotions, for teaching excellence and accounting education research.

We must expect and be prepared for resistance to change. Some faculty members with an unbalanced research orientation and inflated egos will strongly oppose any redirection of funds and rewards from irrelevant research to curriculum design, educational research, and teaching. Likewise, university administrators and college deans are reticent to any form of change. Even the students may protest the kinds of changes outlined in this paper; being forced to think instead of getting by with merely memorizing facts may be distasteful and even repulsive to them.

The coming decade is critical. How accounting educators respond to the challenges will to a large extent determine the future of the accounting profession. It cannot be "business as usual" any longer. The health and perhaps, the survival of the accounting profession is at stake.

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