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Teaching Accounting 101

Shyam Sunder Yale University Annual Meetings of the American Accounting Association New York, August 3, 2009. Teaching Accounting 101. Accounting 101. Introductory course as the basis for street image of accounting Is this image unfair, or well-deserved?

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Teaching Accounting 101

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  1. Shyam Sunder Yale University Annual Meetings of the American Accounting Association New York, August 3, 2009 Teaching Accounting 101

  2. Accounting 101 • Introductory course as the basis for street image of accounting • Is this image unfair, or well-deserved? • What is the difference between Accounting 101 and XYZ 101? • Debits and credits, double-entry bookkeeping, journals and ledgers as answers • But what are the questions? Do our students know them? • What will it take to impart a scientific content to ACC 101

  3. Imparting Scientific Content • What are the the important questions? • Why are they worth asking? • What could be possible answers? • How to find new answers, and evaluate them? • Pizzeria example • Once students identify the problem to be addressed, and learn how to address them, they do not forget

  4. On Expressway, and Headed the Wrong Way • Instead of moving in this direction, Accounting 101 is headed in the opposite direction • Dominance of written standards of accounting and auditing with support of regulators, auditors, and yes, academics • Progressively replacing teaching of accounting by teaching of standards • Replacing thinking and analysis by rote learning • What kind of student will come to these classes • What kind of people will be in the profession?

  5. Accounting and University Curriculum • In MBA programs, accounting is already reduced to a service activity as opposed to a major in most schools • The history of universities is replete with disciplines being tossed out of curriculum for insufficient scientific or intellectual challenge • What is the intellectual challenge in memorizing a thick rule book which must be uniformly applied everywhere in the world under threat of punishment? • How long will accounting retain its place in university curriculum if we keep going in the present direction of standard setting and teaching standards?

  6. Challenge for Accounting Educators • Is not, how to prepare our students to memorize IFRS. • With proper education in analytical thinking about accounting, the code can be read, understood and applied in a few weeks • Instead challenges are to help them : • Learn to think and analyze • Develop their judgment about true and fair, and social norms of community • Develop their sense of professionalism and personal responsibility for their judgments • Develop a commitment to voluntary “Hippocratic” (or Paccioli, if you wish) oath for accounting graduates

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