Faculty and student perspectives on the teaching of nontraditional accounting students

Abstract

The study explores two research questions: Q1, What teaching methods do four-year accounting faculty use with nontraditional accounting students; and Q2, how effective do accounting faculty and students perceive those methods to be with nontraditional accounting students? Nontraditional students are defmed to be students 25 years of age or older. After interviewing 30 faculty members and surveying 53 students, a variety of different teaching methods were identified. Although, faculty indicated an inclination for lecture, they preferred group work, but did not use it because of time limitations and large class sizes. Further, the younger/traditional students preferred a variety of different teaching methods, while the older/nontraditional students preferred homework. Of particular importance was the finding according to faculty, that the wants and needs of the accounting profession did not correspond with the reasons why students major in accounting. The accounting profession wants and needs people with problem solving skills, an ability to cope with ambiguity, general business knowledge, and interpersonal skills. However, students are majoring in accounting because they want financial security, believe accounting is mathematics, like accounting's procedural nature, and believe accounting is unambiguous. Therefore, to graduate accounting students with wants and needs congruent with those of the accounting profession, accounting schools must either redirect accounting student majors or attract different students to accounting. Also of particular importance, were the differences of opinion by faculty of whether there should be an additional 30 hour educational requirement to become a CPA. While most faculty agreed that the additional education improved professional quality, and some even wanted the requirements made more stringent, perhaps similar to those to become an attorney, a significant and vocal minority of the faculty stated that they were opposed to the additional educational requirement because it would prevent poorer students from majoring in accounting because of the additional cost of the additional education. Finally, there is the issue of competition in the classroom. Most faculty indicated that competition was a fact of life in accounting, that competition needed to be used in the classroom, and that students needed to learn how to cope with it.