Accessing Research-Informed Instructional Strategies to Teach Financial and Managerial Accounting: A Review and Recommendations

Abstract

Financial and managerial accounting (FMA) courses are critical courses that give first-year students their first taste of technical accounting content. This paper surveys 20 years of literature in five specialist accounting education journals to draw out research-informed instructional strategies and associated recommendations on their use and development. The findings follow Anson's instructional design model, identifying five categories of research-informed instructional strategies that target FMA: experiential learning; software; content or exam design/delivery; in-class activities; and games. First, the study recommends the use of experiential tools to teach FMA. Second, firms should develop software tools that go beyond multiple choice questions and leverage tools like Excel spreadsheets, data analysis, and visualization, as well as media, such as videos and podcasts. Finally, universities should build communities of practice to encourage a greater level of discourse around teaching FMA. One of the contributions of this paper is to systematically filter, organize, and present the academic peer-reviewed literature that describes research-informed instructional strategies in FMA.