Bloom's Taxonomy in Accounting Education: Teaching Strategies

Introduction

Mathematics is an area of education not often sought after by teachers interested in truly meaningful instruction. The subjects typically seem dry, and students rarely take the courses seriously. In the field of accounting, however, there has been an even larger deficiency in properly educating students. As stated by Rob Gray (2006):

There is evidence that accounting education fails to develop students' intellectual and, relatedly, ethical maturity. This may be seen as a moral failure on the part of accounting educators. The content of much of what currently passes for core accounting knowledge has characteristics which can be associated with both superficial learning strategies and ethically immature moral positions. Thus, it may be that "current accounting knowledge" implicitly reinforces poor accounting education.

It is this premise that leads to the belief that there are methods which can aid in both student learning and enjoyment. Through understanding the material and realizing its possibilities, a teacher can help students look beyond the simple fact that they are in a statistics or accounting course and instead see the big picture of what their education will accomplish once they enter the real world. This paper proposes a different approach to teaching college-level accounting courses — one that appeals to all learning styles while still conveying essential knowledge.

Teaching Techniques and Student Memory Retention

As a student enters the accounting field and begins their education at a university, they are introduced to many new mathematical concepts and may feel overwhelmed from the start. Many first-year instructors prefer simply lecturing as their primary form of instruction, expecting students to retain information for an exam. The problem with this approach is that it only scratches the surface of education and will not benefit students after they complete their degrees and must apply what they have learned in the real world. According to Bloom's Taxonomy, simply remembering and even understanding certain complex topics is merely the tip of the iceberg within the educational system (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).

It is this lack of real application — combined with an abundance of purely theoretical knowledge — that results in many accounting graduates being unable to function effectively once they leave the university. Igor Batista (2005) argues:

It is evident that we need to rethink business education, updating all the means to current needs. This model bears not only the components of a qualification system for accountants — including techniques, skills, and desirable values required for graduation — but allows the contents that should be considered as a guide in order to prepare and organize a program in tune with the global needs within the field. (22)

In order to move a student to success in the field of accounting, that student must be able to properly analyze the information taught in school so that it can be applied in the real world — where problems are no longer neatly packaged to correlate with specific textbook scenarios, and where clients are looking to that student for help and advice. According to Bloom's Taxonomy, this higher level of comprehension is achieved when a student can "examine and break apart information into parts by identifying causes" and "make inferences and find evidence that supports generalizations" (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2000).

Moving an accounting student to this higher level of thinking is the most advantageous goal a professor can pursue. Studies have shown that students capable of critical thinking achieve much greater professional acceptance after graduation. According to a study conducted by Robert Rademacher (1999), the more students were able to critically analyze information from various sources, the higher their acceptance rate for publication of academic papers.

The question then becomes whether it is possible to bring a student to this level of comprehension within the framework of accounting education. The answer is simply yes — entirely possible when using proper classroom techniques. While formal lecture has its place, it cannot be the only method employed. Rather, an integrated approach must be taken in order to encourage students to move to that final level of comprehension. This paper discusses the essential components that move an accounting student beyond simply remembering information: cooperative learning techniques, proper study habits, microteaching strategies, and approaches that guide every learning style through the material.