The Impact of Data Type and Graphical Presentation Type on Financial and Non-Financial Information Literacy in Undergraduate Accounting Students: Two Experiments with Business Analytics Dashboards

Authors

  • Patrick Wheeler Florida Gulf Coast University
  • Yibo (James) Zhang Miami University

Abstract

There is increased demand to teach Business Analytics (BA) in accounting curricula. Dashboards are an important part of BA training. Another key element of BA is variety of data, especially non-financial data. Yet accounting students are significantly less familiar with the use of non-financial than financial data. Little is known about how accounting students will react to this mixture of new IT (BA dashboards) and unfamiliar (non-financial) data. In two experiments, we find that: (1) undergraduate accounting students weight the importance of unfamiliar and familiar data equally when the graphical presentation is aggregated; (2) when the graphical presentation is disaggregated, students weight unfamiliar data more heavily; (3) when students received unfamiliar data versus familiar data, they had a greater response to the information on the graphs; and (4) when students incorporated more unfamiliar data, their reaction to graphical information was enhanced. These results have important implications for AIS education. To teach BA more effectively, accounting educators should be aware of how students react to familiar and unfamiliar information when graphically presented on BA dashboards. Equally important, accounting students as future accountants need to understand how clients react to BA dashboard presentations and ensure that clients use the information correctly.

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Published

2022-01-07

How to Cite

The Impact of Data Type and Graphical Presentation Type on Financial and Non-Financial Information Literacy in Undergraduate Accounting Students: Two Experiments with Business Analytics Dashboards. (2022). The Accounting Educators’ Journal, 31(1). https://www.aejournal.com/ojs/index.php/aej/article/view/651