Impact of the Accounting Education Change Commission's Recommendations on Accounting Instruction

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in accounting instruction recommended by the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) at 11 grant recipient schools and 11 similar non-grant recipient schools randomly selected. The AECC suggested that accounting education should include more communication skills, interpersonal skills, and critical- thinking and problem-solving skills. The AECC also recommended that more emphasis be placed on teaching rather than research.

To measure implementation of the recommended changes, a four part Accounting Instruction Change Scale was developed. The pilot study, (n=34) revealed that the AICS did not distinguish among the four factors considered. This finding was confirmed in the actual study. Surveys were mailed to 438 subjects, 249 to grant school and 189 to non-grant school accounting faculty, of which 163 surveys were returned, 146 were usable. Using Cronbach's alpha, the reliability of the overall Accounting Instruction Change Scale, as determined by the pilot study, was .92. Reliability, using the Cronbach's alpha, for the final study data was .91.

Significant differences were found between respondents and non-respondents for both grant and non-grant schools. Differences in work experience, instruction in educational psychology, and instructional methodology were found to be significant. There were also significant differences between the early respondents and the late respondents in instruction in educational psychology and instructional methodology. Significant differences between the early non-grant school respondents and the late non-grant school respondents were also found in the length of time teaching accounting, length of time at the current institution, and age. These significant differences indicate the sample respondents are a unique group, and any inferences made from this sample to the general population should be made with caution.

For the correlations of all variables, Predisposition to Change, Adoption-Proneness, refereed publicaitons, non-refereed publications, work experience, educational psychology, instructional methodology, membership in professional organizations, gender, and age, the the correlations ranged from a high of .497 between the Adoption-Proneness Scale and the Accounting Instruction Change Scale to a low of .001 between age and instruction in educational psychology. In the full Regression Model, the variables included accounted for 40.8% of the variance in the AICS. The regression analysis shows the Predisposition to Change Scale scores and Adoption Proneness Scale scores to be significant expanatory variables concerning predicting the score of the Accounting Instruction Change Scale score. No other significant variables surfaced in the regression analysis indicating institutional membership did not predict AICS score.