Assessment of Oral Presentations in an Accounting Program: Videotapes and Role Plays

Abstract

Abstract This work was motivated by feedback received from a School Accountancy’s Advisory Board; the members were dissatisfied with new accounting staff hires’ face-to-face communication skills. Although the School was achieving positive assessment results using traditional methodology, the board members questioned if the School was measuring the right approach to presentations. Would it be possible to assess one-on-one communication of technical material rather than forma presentations to a group? The authors present the results from two pilot tests that investigated the use of one-on-one role plays using undergraduate tax and advanced marketing sales students. Undergraduate tax students role-played to the advanced sales students an individual tax return prepared as a class project. The presentations were videotaped. Graduate tax students assessed the videotapes and reported results to the authors. Results were favorable. In addition, results suggest that using students who are naive to the others’ situation give a more realistic feel to the role-play presentations.