Introduction to Financial Accounting (ACCT 2101) Course Redesign at Georgia Gwinnett College
Teaching Intro to Financial Accounting Using a Nontraditional Approach and its Effect on Students’ Academic Performance
Yvonne Ellis, Karen B. McCarron, Kathleen Pinson
Georgia Gwinnett College
Business programs have tried to improve the passing rates of students enrolled in the principles of financial accounting courses with very little success. The purpose of this study was to compare the traditional (preparer) versus the nontraditional (user) approach to teaching the course and its effect on the academic performance of 179 undergraduate students. The results suggest that students performed better at midterm using the traditional method and better overall using the nontraditional approach as confirmed by the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test. These results have implications for how and when students are taught accounting topics and the effect on their academic performance.
