Find It, Fix It, Or Leave: Impact of an Accounting-Cycle Proficiency Assignment in Intermediate Accounting
Abstract
This study investigates the results of adding an accounting-cycle proficiency homework assignment to the Intermediate Financial Accounting I course to enforce the prerequisites and improve the historically poor pass rate. The proficiency assignment was an online intelligent tutoring system providing both tutoring and “testing out” for proficiency. Students received all-or-none credit (100 percent or zero percent) for mastering adjusting entries and the financial statements, forcing students to persist to complete mastery of prerequisite knowledge and relieving instructors of the need to assign partial grading. Students completing the proficiency assignment earned better project grades, scored on par with control participants on prerequisite knowledge, and scored higher on the cumulative final exam on non-prerequisite topics. Grades in Intermediate II were also better the term after adding the proficiency assignment. The intrigue of these results goes beyond improved student outcomes in Intermediate I and II, because the intervention used an existing on-demand tutoring technology, requiring no institutional resources and involving no changes to the course preparation, instruction, classwork, exams, or the project.
Location
Room 2904
Recommended Citation
Sargent, Carol, "Find It, Fix It, Or Leave: Impact of an Accounting-Cycle Proficiency Assignment in Intermediate Accounting " (2012). SoTL Commons Conference. 28.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2012/28
Find It, Fix It, Or Leave: Impact of an Accounting-Cycle Proficiency Assignment in Intermediate Accounting
Room 2904
This study investigates the results of adding an accounting-cycle proficiency homework assignment to the Intermediate Financial Accounting I course to enforce the prerequisites and improve the historically poor pass rate. The proficiency assignment was an online intelligent tutoring system providing both tutoring and “testing out” for proficiency. Students received all-or-none credit (100 percent or zero percent) for mastering adjusting entries and the financial statements, forcing students to persist to complete mastery of prerequisite knowledge and relieving instructors of the need to assign partial grading. Students completing the proficiency assignment earned better project grades, scored on par with control participants on prerequisite knowledge, and scored higher on the cumulative final exam on non-prerequisite topics. Grades in Intermediate II were also better the term after adding the proficiency assignment. The intrigue of these results goes beyond improved student outcomes in Intermediate I and II, because the intervention used an existing on-demand tutoring technology, requiring no institutional resources and involving no changes to the course preparation, instruction, classwork, exams, or the project.
