Teaching accounting in the new millennium

Abstract

Cooperative learning models of teaching are the most suitable teaching models for the development of professional accounting competencies in the new millennium. Currently, the role of accountants has changed from being a technical job to one more client-oriented. The teaching and learning of accounting is adjusting accordingly to match the challenges of this new accounting role. Universities are searching for a number of strategies to teach the professional accounting competencies currently required in the profession. Australian accounting teaching and learning standards provide a thorough set of criteria for determining what is necessary in accounting education. Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun (2009) categorised a wide variety of teaching models into four families including: information processing, behavioural, personal, and social models. This paper applied the Australian Accounting Teaching and Learning Standards criteria to the models of teaching categorised by Joyce, Weil and Calhoun (2009) to evaluate which teaching and learning model would be most appropriate in the education of future accountants. The findings indicate that the social interdependence theory and the cooperative learning model are the most appropriate to test for teaching accounting in the new millennium.