The AECC Curriculum
project at BYU has been completed. During the 1993-94 academic
year, a third group of 240 students enrolled in the new
program. BYU’s AECC project had three goals: (1) to identify
the competencies needed by professional accountants in the
next decade, (2) to design a curriculum to develop those
competencies in students, and (3) to address the effectiveness
of the new curriculum in achieving those student competencies.
To meet the first
goal, identifying needed competencies, a field survey was
conducted on 873 practicing CPAs in Southern California and
accountants within the Marriott and Phillips Petroleum
Companies. Through this survey and a careful review of other
competency studies, 27 competencies were identified.
To meet the second
goal, designing a curriculum that would cultivate the needed
competencies, faculty efforts focused on two types of changes:
(1) changing the overall structure of the accounting junior
year, and (2) changing the curriculum and pedagogy within the
new structure.
To meet the third
goal, assessing the effectiveness of the changed program,
formative evaluation was conducted as the program was being
designed and implemented. An educational consultant aided
accounting faculty in gathering both formative and summative
data throughout the restructuring process. Through formative
evaluations, adjustments to the program have been made
continually, and through summative evaluation, attempts have
been designed to capture the impact of the new program on
students, faculty and external parties.
The change in
structure of the junior year was extensive. Separate
intermediate accounting, cost/managerial accounting, tax,
auditing, and systems courses that had been previously taught
were deleted. In their place, an integrated, team taught, 24
credit-hour core was instituted. This new core encompasses
most of the traditional technical competencies and also nine
of the 27 non technical or “expanded” competencies identified
in the competency study. The nine expanded competencies
integrated into the core are:
A. |
Written Communication |
|
1. |
Ability to
present views in writing. |
B. |
Oral
Communication |
|
2. |
Ability to
present views through oral communication. |
|
3. |
Ability to
listen effectively. |
C. |
Group Work and People Skills |
|
4. |
Ability to
understand group dynamics and work effectively with
people. |
|
5. |
Ability to
resolve conflict. |
|
6. |
Ability to
organize and delegate tasks. |
D. |
Critical Thinking |
|
7. |
Ability to solve diverse and unstructured
problems. |
|
8. |
Ability to read, critique, and judge the value
of written work. |
E. |
Working Under Pressure |
|
9. |
Ability to deal effectively with imposed
pressure and deadlines. |
As the new curriculum
was developed, these nine expanded competencies became part of
the focus of each day’s planning. Each three-hour block
emphasized one or more of these competencies in addition to
the technical content. Grading was designed to weight content
and expanded competencies equally. The content of the core was
organized around business cycles, a pedagogical approach that
had proved successful in auditing and systems courses.
The seven business
cycles that form the framework for teaching the technical and
expanded competencies are: (1) a foundation phase, (2)
organizing a business, (3) sales/collection, (4)
acquisition/payment, (5) payroll/performance evaluation, (6)
conversion/inventory, and (7) financing. With the substitution
of the new core, the overall structure of the entire BYU
accounting program is now as follows:
Freshman and
Sophomore Years Students complete general education
requirements and take pre-business and pre-accounting
requirements including introductory accounting. Approximately
240 students are admitted to the School of Accountancy &
Information Systems (SOAIS) at the conclusion of the sophomore
year.
Junior
Year SOAIS students are enrolled in the integrated,
team-taught program that involves three hours of classroom
experience four days a week for the entire year. The junior
year is divided into four grading blocks, each worth six
semester hours of credit. Teams of five professors from the
functional areas of systems, financial accounting, managerial
accounting, tax, and auditing, plus a law professor and an
international accounting professor team teach sections of
50-60 students each. At the conclusion of the year, students
apply for the five-year, master of accountancy program (MAcc)
or elect to graduate with a four-year bachelor’s degree.
Senior Year, 1st
Semester The 150 SOAIS students who are accepted into
the MAcc program join with MBA and MOB (Masters of
Organizational Behavior) students for another team-taught,
3-hours per day, integrated program. Professors from the
functional areas of business management, finance, marketing,
organizational behavior, strategy, and communications work
with integrated sections of 60-70 students each. Students who
elect a bachelor’s degree or who are not admitted to the
150-hour program take undergraduate, non-accounting business
courses and other electives.
Senior Year, 2nd
Semester MAcc students begin to specialize in
information systems, tax or professional accounting by taking
specialty courses in those areas as well as business and
non-business electives. Bachelor’s students complete their
degrees by taking other undergraduate business and elective
courses.
Fifth
Year MAcc students continue specialization in tax,
professional accounting or information systems. Graduates
receive both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in accounting.
Eight curriculum and
pedagogical innovations were included in the new program:
- Integrating
expanded competencies instruction with technical accounting
instruction.
- Organizing and
integrating technical content by business cycle.
- Using new teaching
strategies, including extensive use of student groups
(cooperative learning) and teaching in three-hour blocks.
- Grading on the
basis of both technical and expanded competencies.
- Using a
business-events systems approach to teaching accounting.
- Using a faculty
team approach to planning, teaching, and evaluation.
- Developing
detailed teaching plans for each class period.
- Using textbooks
and other materials as resources rather than allowing them
to drive curriculum.
Reactions to the new
curriculum have been generally positive. Even though students
believe they are working harder than ever before, they feel
that they will be better prepared for professional life. In
addition, because the program is different from other
undergraduate courses of study, it has achieved an identity
comparable to MBA and law programs on campus. The students’
attitude is no longer “let’s study accounting,” but “let’s
apply to the accounting program.” As a result of this
identity, both the number and quality of applicants have
increased.
Reactions of BYU
administrators also have been positive. All administrators,
including the President, Provost and Academic Vice President
have attended briefings on the program and indicated strong
university approval and support. The President has remarked
several times during the last two years that “there is no
finer program on campus than accounting.”
Reactions of
recruiters also have been positive. For example, a “Big 6”
firm invited an accounting faculty member to its national
recruiting meeting to explain the BYU accounting program,
while two other firms sent delegations of partners to study
and observe the program.
Reactions from
faculty have been mixed. While most view the curriculum
favorably, faculty have expressed concern about a number of
factors: (1) the loss of autonomy and control, (2) the lack of
faculty ownership of courses, (3) the labor intensiveness of
the program, (4) a possible reduction in the amount of
technical knowledge being learned by students, and (5) the
necessity of teaching in front of colleagues in a
team-teaching environment. Most faculty who have taught in the
core are excited, however, and many have started to focus on
expanded competencies in other classes they
teach. Back
to AECC Grant
Summaries |