The Long-Term Effects of Multiple-Period, Integrated Accounting Cycle Practice Sets on Student Learning

• In Event: Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum I

Abstract

This study reports the results of an experiment testing the efficacy of multiple-period, integrated accounting cycle practice sets incorporating financial statement preparation. The long-term abilities of the students were gauged in an accounting knowledge test taken during a course on auditing at a later point in the accounting curriculum, and were compared to the abilities of students who were taught under the traditional method that used independent sets of journal entries.

We find that students using the integrated approach perform better than those that were trained in the traditional method for questions on some topics, although this pattern does not hold for every type of question. Overall, the results are supportive of an integrated method and have implications for accounting instructors as well as for textbook authors. Importantly, our paper examines the impact on long-term ability, and we suggest that future research adopt this metric more frequently, given the relevance of long-term knowledge retention as an indicator of a student’s skill set upon graduation.

Authors

• Darius James Fatemi, Northern Kentucky University

• Robert Neil Marley, Georgia Southern University

• Linda Mills Marquis, Northern Kentucky University