How shall we teach tomorrow's CPAs?

Maryland educators address current curriculum issues at annual conference

By Andrew Schiff, Towson University
Barbara R. Stewart, Towson University
Bruce H. Lubich, University of Maryland University College

One of the many services the MACPA provides to its members is an annual Educators' Conference. This year's conference was attended by more than 70 faculty members and others from a variety of colleges and universities.

In one conference session, participants engaged in a spirited discussion and completed a survey on two issues that have generated controversy in academia and the profession. The first is the appropriate perspective for the "Introduction to Accounting" course; the second is the extent to which accounting majors should emphasize preparation for the CPA exam.

In this article, we briefly summarize these controversies and present views of the conference participants toward each of them.

Introduction to Accounting: 'User' or 'preparer' perspective?

The "Introduction to Accounting" course sequence typically consists of two semesters of accounting principles or an introductory course in financial accounting followed by another in managerial accounting. These courses usually serve three groups of students: the future accounting majors, majors in other business disciplines, and students from a wide range of other majors such as nursing or public administration.

Because of the varied audience, these courses must have several objectives. The first is to provide future accounting majors with a firm foundation for subsequent accounting courses. A second objective is to enable the business majors and others to understand and perhaps even participate in accounting for the organizations at which they will be working. A third is to provide all students with an understanding of financial statements so they can use these statements intelligently as investors, creditors and informed citizens. Finally, the course sequence should attract the best and the brightest students to the accounting major.

How can these objectives best be accomplished? Recent advocates for changing the accounting curriculum have argued that, in the first accounting courses, emphasizing the perspective of a user of financial statements rather than that of a preparer is more effective. For example, one educator contended, "Introductory accounting might focus less on preparation of financial statements and more on analysis. It might explore the role that accounting plays in capital markets and organizations and explain the structure of the profession. The second (introductory accounting) course might creatively capture managerial topics that focus on using information to make decisions." *

But the traditional approach still has strong advocates. Another professor stated, "We were considering moving our principles course away from the debit-credit approach ... and floated the idea to our Executive Advisory Board, and they unanimously, vehemently, recommended against it. Their reasoning was that they valued, very highly, the mental structure which was elicited by the debit-credit approach."

A third stated, "I teach Intermediate Accounting, and I'm getting sick of all these students who don't know the mechanics of double-entry accounting and who can't write even the most basic adjusting journal entries. As a result, the first half of Intermediate I has become remedial training for what is no longer taught in Principles of Accounting."

What do Maryland's accounting educators think? To find out, we asked conference participants to complete a survey which examined, among other things, their opinions on the user vs. preparer perspective (non-educators were excluded). More than half of the participants completed the survey. To obtain greater insight into the results, we split the group in several ways: full-time or part-time faculty, level of courses normally taught, type of institution at which employed, and whether the respondents also operated an accounting practice. While the results represent just a portion of Maryland's accounting educators, they do reveal the attitudes of a cross-section of professors throughout the state.

The participants rated their agreement on a seven-point scale, where (1) was "the principles of accounting course should emphasize the use of financial statement information" and (7) was "the principles of accounting course should emphasize the preparation of financial statement information." The average rating for the entire group was 4.4, representing a small preference toward emphasizing the preparation of financial statement information. Thirty percent of the respondents favored a perfect balance between the two approaches, with a rating of 4.0.

The preparer perspective received more support from faculty at two-year institutions (an average of 4.7) and at four-year institutions without graduate programs in business (4.9) than from faculty at institutions with graduate programs in business (3.7). A similar difference was noted between faculty who teach primarily at the undergraduate level (4.5) and those who teach primarily at the graduate level (3.6). There were only minor differences between full-time and part-time faculty, and between faculty who are also practitioners and those who are not practitioners.

Should the accounting major emphasize preparation for the CPA exam?

Students in upper-level accounting courses are almost exclusively accounting majors. A large portion of the accounting majors intend to sit for the CPA exam.

To what extent should these courses focus on the exam? Some educators oppose such an emphasis. For example, one of them remarked, "By focusing on the pursuit of knowledge and the capacity to think rather than on practice techniques, we will develop professionals rather than technicians. Without the knowledge gained in a general education program, accountants are not likely to have the perspective needed to solve information-age problems and deal with constant change in the social context where they work."

Others, however, believe a consideration of the exam is appropriate. Another professor contended, "If the exam is based on surveys of what CPAs do, i.e., practice analyses, there must be some connection between practice and exam content; otherwise the surveys make little sense. If, then, the exam is truly 'practice-driven' and a professor did indeed 'teach to the exam,' wouldn't he also be teaching to practice? What would be so wrong that if somewhere, someone was actually doing that?"

The survey also asked participants their opinions on the issue of CPA exam preparation in the accounting curriculum. They rated their agreement on a seven-point scale in which (1) was "courses in the accounting major should not emphasize preparation for the CPA examination" and (7) was "courses in the accounting major should emphasize preparation for the CPA examination." The average rating for the entire group was 4.7, indicating a slight preference for emphasizing CPA exam preparation. Thirty percent of the respondents favored an evenly balanced approach, with a rating of 4.0.

Part-time faculty showed a greater preference for emphasis on exam preparation (an average of 5.3) than did full-time faculty (4.3). A greater preference for CPA exam preparation also was shown by faculty who normally teach advanced undergraduate courses (4.8) and the introductory course (4.5) than by faculty who teach primarily at the graduate level (3.7). There were relatively minor differences between the other subgroups.

What can we conclude from these results? While there are some differences based on full- or part-time status, level of courses normally taught or type of institution, Maryland's accounting educators appear to endorse a healthy balance between the extremes in these controversies. In the "Introduction to Accounting" course sequence, participants in the conference survey favored providing sufficient technical training to prepare tomorrow's accounting majors while illustrating the applications of this information for all students. In the advanced courses primarily for accounting majors, the participants recognized the importance of successful preparation for professional licensure (particularly part-time professors) but also of developing higher-level cognitive and professional skills, especially at the graduate level.

These results may be helpful for accounting department committees responsible for developing standard course outlines or selecting textbooks. They reveal that most professors in the introductory course sequence are likely to be satisfied with a course outline and a textbook which pursues a middle ground between the user and the preparer approaches. Similarly, most professors in the advanced courses are likely to be comfortable with an outline and a textbook which, while not structured around the CPA exam, does not ignore it entirely.

One final comment. The Board of Examiners has identified the following skills as those needed by entry-level CPAs: analysis, judgment, communication, research and understanding. The new computerized CPA exam is being designed to better test these skills. If it is successful in testing them, focusing on the new exam will require more than just imparting technical knowledge. It will have the added benefit of developing the higher-level intellectual skills currently stressed by educators who favor a less procedure-oriented curriculum.

* Note: Citations for all remarks quoted in this article will be provided from the authors upon request.

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