A Descriptive Study of the Characteristics of Introductory Accounting Courses Offered by Community Colleges

Abstract

Community colleges play a crucial role in higher education.  Recognizing the important role these institutions play in educating future accountants, the American Accounting Association has called for research that contributes to a better understanding of these members of the academic community. Although previous literature has shown that community colleges and four-year institutions differ on many levels, the extant literature provides no data on the characteristics of introductory accounting courses offered by community colleges.  We fill a void in the literature by providing data on the characteristics of introductory accounting courses offered by community colleges in the United States. Given that a growing number of states include introductory accounting in a transferrable set of core courses, the resulting data should be of interest to instructors, regulators and administrators, researchers, and the accounting profession.