AAA Spark Meeting of the Regions

Accounting Students Learning by Doing in the VITA Tax Clinic

• In Event: Roundtable Session II

Abstract

“Service-learning is a teaching and learning approach that integrates community service with academic study to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities” (National Commission on Service-Learning, 2002). SRU permits students to serve as VITA tax preparers for a service-learning experience. The VITA student tax preparers learn skills that are vital for any career in business. The three major benefits identified from participation in the VITA program for students are: (1) how much the students have learned by applying their knowledge to real world situations, (2) increased self-confidence, and (3) the reward of using the knowledge acquired in their coursework to help people in their community (Rama, 1998). Also, students develop and enhance several soft skills such as problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking, and leadership, each of which is valuable to entry-level accounting and business professionals. Students enhance their marketability by developing these skills through active participation in the VITA tax clinic. This type of learning works well because the students work with real-life taxpayers who need the students’ skills and knowledge (Rama, 1998). VITA forces the students to take charge of their own learning. Each new taxpayer brings a new set of facts, issues and unstructured problems which the student tax preparer must sort through and identify.

Author

• Theresa Phipps, Slippery Rock University