An Approach to Course Design for Introductory Financial Accounting

Abstract

Accounting education has been criticized for many years for being out of date, promoting superficial learning and not developing broader skills required by today’s university graduates. Additionally, university education in general has increasingly been criticized for these same reasons. Accounting educators teaching an introductory financial accounting course also face the challenge of designing a course that delivers a large amount of content to a diverse group of students. The purpose of this article is to respond to these issues by introducing an approach to course design that integrates broad competencies and interdisciplinary themes into the content of introductory financial accounting. The paper draws on post-secondary education and accounting education literatures to inform the approach which includes a general framework, a reflection process, and a course design matrix.