Commercial High School Students Conceptual Structures of Accounting

Commercial High School Students Conceptual Structures of Accounting Mustafa AY Selcuk Universty, Cihanbeyli MYO, Department of Accounting, 42850, Cihanbeyli, Konya, Turkey. E-mail: may@selcuk.edu.tr ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate commercial high school students conceptual structures of accounting. Data was collected from 132 students using a free word association test in Turkey. The results of this research revealed the conceptual structures of accounting of the participant students with various dimensions. Eight different categories were formed with the participant students response words about accounting. These categories were: tools used in accounting, the accounting profession and education, accounting results, accounts, the accounting environment, the professional ethics of accounting, the technicality of accounting and, mathematical operations. The category with the highest frequency was tools used in accounting whereas the category with the lowest frequency was mathemetical operations. It was observed when the categories formed were analyzed that, accounting students conceptual structures of accounting were on various dimensions and at an adequate level. These results were compared with the related literature and recommendations were developed. Keywords: Commercial high school students, conceptual structures, accounting, word association test. Paper Type: Research Paper INTRODUCTION Accounting education can be defined as: determining, collecting, recording, summarizing, reporting, analyzing and auditing the information that directs business decisions (Aysan, 1979; Hacırüstemoğlu, 2009; Amernic and Craig, 2004). Information, business decisions and schooling of the students are prominent elements in the definition of accounting education. Information is also the most important tool that enables businesses to use their resources efficiently in tough competitive environments. To reach the information as soon as possible, and to use this information in the most efficient way is the result of the educational perception of the information era that integrates with technology. This perception is learning to learn for students and learning to teach for teachers. This approach manifests the philosophy of lifelong learning (Demirkan, 2001; Doylez, 1993). Accounting is a system of information. We live in the information age. In the information age, businesses have to use information increasingly frequently and information gains an ever-increasing strategic importance depending on competition and change (Nalbantoğlu, 2003). An efficient accounting education is required to meet the needs created by these 24

Far East Journal of Psychology and Business Vol. 2 No 2, February 2011 changes and developments (Steadman and Gren, 1995). Providing an efficient accounting education is an important problem of the accounting environment. Studies to solve this problem accelerated in the 1980s and still continue today. Some of these studies can be summarized as follows. The International Association for Accounting Education and Research (IAEER) was established in 1982 in order to participate in the organization of the 6th International Conference of Accounting Education and has an important role in accounting education. The objectives of the IAAER centre on two points. The first of these objectives is to work towards the worldwide perfection of accounting education and research, and the other is to provide the maximum contribution for accounting instructors on the protection and the development of high quality and globally accepted accounting application standards (Pekdemir and Süer, 2005; Gücenme, 2006). Many personal and institutional studies have been carried out in the USA in order to develop accounting education. Some of these were carried out by the Bedford Committee that was formed by the American Accounting Association, experts in education and its application. The Committee published a report titled Future Accounting Education: Preparing for the Expanding Profession in 1986. This report emphasized that accounting students were not efficiently prepared for a professional accounting career in the application of the accounting programmes in private and public sectors and brought forward two proposals. The first of these is, developing and distributing the information used to take economic decisions in accounting education, and the second is to emphasize learning to teach as the main purpose of the classroom in the education of the student (Sundem, Williams and Chironna, 1990). The White Paper: Perspectives on Education: Capabilities for Success in the Accounting Profession, published by eight big accounting companies in the USA, in 1989, is an important milestone in accounting education. In this research, some titles about accounting education were designated. These titles are: communication skills, intellectual skills, individual skills, economy, mathematics and basic statistics knowledge, organization and business administration knowledge and accounting knowledge (Big 8, 1989; AECC, 1990; Mohammed and Lashine, 2003). In a period of important developments in the globalization of the accounting profession, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) published number 9 International Educational Regulation (Prequalification Education, Assessment of Professional Competence and Experience Requirements of Professional Accountants) in 1996 (IEG-9, 1996). According to this regulation, the purpose of accounting education and experience should be to create competent accounting profession members who have the skill to contribute to their job and society through their lives. To be able to maintain that professional competence over the ever-increasing changes, the accountants should develop their attitude of learning to learn. The education and the experience of the accounting profession members must be their basis of information, skills and professional values that makes them keep learning and accommodate themselves to changes throughout their professional lives. The basis of these studies is the distinction between the accounting applications and the accounting education (Steadman and Gren, 1995). Educational institutions cannot accommodate changes as fast and easily as the markets, because they cannot obtain information from the market powers as fast as businesses (Albrecht and Sack, 2000). The slow change in accounting education despite the rapid change in the business environment 25

creates the deficit (Bayazıtlı and Çelik, 2004). The rapid change of our world, increases the deficit between the application and education gradually (Mathews, 2001; Mulford and Weirich, 1992; Albrecht, 2002). The accommodation of the accounting instructors to the new developments besides accounting employees can be a solution to the increase in this deficit (Pethley and Fremgen, 1999). Many studies have been carried out to solve this deficit problem in accounting education (Bedford and Shankir, 1987; Pincus, 1990; Sundem, Williams and Chironna, 1990; Mathews, 2001; Mulford and Weirich, 1992; Albrecht, 2002). Accounting trade bodies, accounting employees, accounting companies and universities can be listed as the ones who are directly effected from the rupture between the accounting applications and the accounting education. The resistance of these related bodies to the change besides their expectations from accounting education enhances the dimensions and the deadlock of the problem (Beyazıtlı and Çelik, 2004). Another problem besides the accounting deficit is about learning. There are many studies about learning in the literature. Marton and Saljo (1976) analyzed higher education students perspectives on learning. This research formed the basis of Sharma s (1997) research which analyzed the learning perceptions of students for the first time. Lucas and Meyer (2004) analyzed how accounting educators can provide awareness and support to develop students perceptions. Kern (2002) examined the effects of freshmen in the accounting department developing a conceptual model on their problem-solving skills. Ballantine, Duff and Larres (2008), Byrne and Willis (2008), Leveson (2004) and Elias (2005) examined the learning approaches of accounting students and accounting employees in their research. Hackner and Tschudi, (1994), Leauby and Brazina (1998), Chen and Ching (2003), Maas and Leauby (2005), Simon (2007) did scientific studies on the use of concept maps in accounting education. Jackling (2005) analyzed the accounting approaches, perceptions of their courses and examination results of sophomores in the accounting department of a university in Australia using qualitative data. The American Accounting Organization Executive Board, suggests that academies and universities approach accounting educating as developing decision making-oriented information and distribution function and they emphasize that students education should be to learn as the basic purpose of the courses (Kaya, 1999). Moreover, the students should be raised with a different approach that considers their personality formation. So then, the following points should be elaborated (Önal and Apaydın, 1999; Erdoğan, Tek, Şakrak and Muğan, 2000): creating pedagogic approaches based on learning to learn and developing perception of continuing education ; accommodating technology and developing computing skills; providing students interactive study and developing their creativity by emancipating them from passivity; developing oral and technological communication skills; and consequently, raising individuals capable of questioning, teamwork, sharing, reasoning scientifically and systematically with moral values and social responsibilies. In an environment where there is a need for accounting employees who can present financial information about business accurately, objectively and in good quality which increases day by day, it is important that professional knowledge and skills of accounting students be developed. Undoubtedly in this point, the quality of the accounting education of students is 26

Far East Journal of Psychology and Business Vol. 2 No 2, February 2011 the basic determinant. In this context, qualified education, qualified accountants, qualified accounting knowledge and effective business decisions reveal the importance of accounting education (Daştan, 2008). Education is the consequence of teaching and learning facts. Teaching is carried out in a planned and purposeful manner. However, learning is the consequence of the interaction between the instructor and the student. Therefore, for the education to be achieved, learning must be attained besides accomplishing the teaching process (Zaif and Karapınar, 2002). Problems mentioned above about accounting education, reveal the fact that research should be carried out about the students conceptual structures. Additionally, there is a need for suitable teaching strategies to eliminate the alternative concepts of students and to provide meaningful learning. To design these teaching strategies, an effective knowledge of the students conceptual structures is needed. It is expected that, the findings of this study be useful for students, instructors and curriculum designers. Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate commercial high school students conceptual structures of accounting using a free word association test. This study focuses on the following question: How do commercial high school students conceptualize the term accounting? METHODOLOGY Participants The participants of this research are 132 senior year students chosen randomly from two separate commercial high schools in Konya, Turkey. The test was applied to students in a classroom environment during the spring semester of the academic year 2009/10. The average age of the students was 17.4 years (range 16 19). The majority of the students were female (57%). However, the focus of this study is not on gender differences. Data Collection The participant students were asked to complete a free word association task. In the task, the term accounting was presented to them as a stimulus word as follows: Accounting: Accounting: Accounting: Accounting: Accounting: The stimulus word was written five times, one under the other, to prevent the risk of chain answering. This is because if the students do not return to the stimulus word after they write 27

the response word, that response word may become the stimulus word for the next response word and this may harm the purpose of the test. The students were asked to write down the first five words that came to mind when hearing or reading the term accounting. The word association test is a data collection technique that is used to analyze the conceptual structure of an individual or a group of people about a certain subject. The technique is based on the assumption that giving a stimulus word and asking the respondents to freely associate what ideas come to their mind gives relatively unrestricted access to mental representations of the stimulus term (Bahar, Johnstone and Sutcliffe, 1999; Hovardas and Korfiatis, 2006; Sato and James, 1999). In the simplest form of this technique, a word or a series of words are presented to participants written or orally. The participants are asked to give whatever comes to their minds as response words in association with the stimulus word. After the content is analyzed and the frequency of response words is calculated, it is possible to make conclusions on the associative meanings of the stimulus word and so to define the conceptual structures of the participants. This kind of application of the free word association task which reveals the associative meanings of various concepts has been used in various studies (Daskolia, Flogaitis, and Papageorgiou, 2006; Sato and James, 1999; Torkar and Bajd, 2006; Cardak, 2009; Dikmenli, 2010). Data analysis Data collected from the word association test was analyzed. Response words with the same meanings were categorized together under the heading of the response word with the highest frequency. Response words that were used three or less times and the irrelevant words that were not associated with the other words were excluded. The words were categorized using a criterion of semantic relationship and the frequency of the words in each category was calculated. It has been proved in many other research that this type of data analysis gives reliable results (Daskolia, Flogaitis, and Papageorgiou, 2006; Sato and James, 1999; Torkar and Bajd, 2006; Dikmenli, 2010). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Following the data analysis, response words were grouped under eight categories. These categories and the response words under each category are demonstrated in Table 1. Table 1 represents the categories and the associations of accounting. According to the results, the dominant category that is associated with accounting is: the tools used in accounting (112 response words). The students used the response words, money and ledgers with a high frequency in this category. Moreover, response words computer programmes, invoice, cheque, note and voucher take place in this category. The concept of accounting is the science and art of recording, classifying, summarizing, reporting and analyzing the transactions in a form expressed with money and based on information and documents. (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Lerner, 2004; Weygandt, Kieso and Kimmel, 2008). Considering this definition, it is observed that, students associate the recording of documents used in accounting in the book of accounts with a high frequency in this category. One of the basic accounting principles is monetary unit assumption (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Brock, Herrington, and Ramey, 2006). A basic accounting principles states that measurements in accounting systems must be done in monetary units 28

Far East Journal of Psychology and Business Vol. 2 No 2, February 2011 (Dobija, 2003). In this context, the frequency of money being higher than the other other tools is not that significant in terms of learning. In the second category of response words, it is revealed that participant students associate accounting with the accounting profession and accounting education. There are two concepts in this category, these are: profession and education. The two concepts are in the same category because, some of the response words (difficult, complicated, stress and boring) of students are related to both concepts. It is observed in this category that, most of the participants focus on the profession, course, independent accountant, complicated, certified public accountant, department, job training, stress and boring words. Profession is the word with the highest frequency in this category. With this result, it can be claimed that, students predominantly perceive the concept of accounting as a profession. It is an important issue to be analyzed for the accounting instructors that students consider the accounting course as difficult, complicated and boring. On the other hand, it can be concluded from the fact that students used negative words such as difficult, complicated, stress and boring for the profession that, students do not have positive thoughts about the accounting profession. A study on students thoughts about the image of accountants, carried out by Ewing, Pitt and Poore (2001) reveals that most of the students think that only boring people would want to become accountants. Hoffjan (2004) made a content analysis on the image of accountants in Germany. In this research, how accountants in Germany are perceived by society was analyzed with the help of films, newspapers and magazines. The research found that accounting is a boring, stressful and difficult profession which shares similarities with the findings of our research. The third category of the response words is formed with the words that are associated with the results that appear at the summarizing and reporting (Cemalcılar, Benligiray and Sürmeli, 2006; Akdoğan and Sevilengül, 2007) stages which are indicated in the definition of accounting. In this category, most of the participants focus on the balance sheet, trial balance, tax, inventory, profit, loss, income and expense concepts. In this category students generally associate the concept of accounting with the tables and results produced by accounting. That the balance sheet, which is one of the most important financial charts of accounting, has a high frequency is a sample of meaningful learning. It can be claimed about this category that, most of the response words are related with year-end procedures and the results of these procedures. In the fourth category of the response words, words related with accounts are associated with accounting. It is observed in this category that, students focus on the accounts, uniform chart of accounts, value added tax, payable and receivable. In this category, the response word accounts has the highest frequency among the response words. In the fifth category of response words, words related with the accounting environment are associated with accounting. In this category, it is observed that students focus on the companies, accounting office, customer, treasury, commerce and government response words. The frequency of the response words companies and accounting office are higher than the others. In the sixth category of response words, words related with ethics in accounting are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on: order, tax evasion, deception, responsibility, carefulness and forgery response words. In this category, order is the word with the highest frequency. Considering the principle of working meticulously is one of the 29

professional behaviour principles (Brown, Stocks and Wilder, 2007; Preston, Cooper, Scarbrough and Chilton, 1995), this finding is pretty meaningful. Moreover, responsibility and carefulness response words can be associated with responsibilites and working meticulously which are professional behaviour principles (Brown, Stocks and Wilder, 2007; Preston, Cooper, Scarbrough and Chilton, 1995). However, tax evasion, deception and forgery response words are thought-provoking. Kalaycı and Tekşen (2006) revealed in their research on accountants in the Isparta province that, according to society, the less tax the customers of an accountant pay the better the accountant. There may be various reasons why commercial high school students have such negative thoughts about accounting. The accountant image that is presented by visual and printed media can be the reason for these kind of thoughts. News about forgery and financial scandals in the media can also effect the image of accountants in a negative way. However, there is also research which asserts that the way of thinking that the less tax the customers of an accountant pay the better the accountant has lost its significance (Suadiye and Yükselen, 2001; Taner, Korukoğlu and Susmuş, 2001). In the seventh category of response words, words related to the scientific quality of accounting are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on the recording, logic, analysis, information and principles. The recording response word has the highest frequency in this category. Considering the scientific quality of accounting, responses given by the students are good examples of meaningful learning. In the eighth and last category of response words, mathematical operations are associated with accounting. In this category, students focus on the operation, mathematics and numbers response words. The frequency of the response word operation is higher than the other response words, considering the cumulative frequency. Table 1 Associations about the term accounting (Categories and answers included in the category and the cumulative frequency of response words). Categories Associations included in categories and their frequencies 30 Total frequency of association in this category 1 Tools used in accounting "money" (47) 112 "ledgers" (32) computer programmes" (13) "invoice" (6) "cheque" (5) "note" (5) "voucher" (4) 2 Accounting profession and "profession" (30) 99 education "course" (13) "difficult" (10) "independent accountant" (8) "complicated" (8) "examination" (7) "certified public accountant" (6) "department" (5) "job training" (4) "stress" (4) "boring" (4) 3 Accounting results "balance sheet" (28) 85 "trial balance" (14)

Far East Journal of Psychology and Business Vol. 2 No 2, February 2011 "tax" (11) "inventory" (10) "profit" (6) "loss" (6) "income" (5) "expense" (5) 4 Accounts "accounts" (55) 78 "uniform chart of accounts" (10) "value added tax" (5) "payable" (4) "receivable" (4) 5 Accounting environment "companies" (15) 41 "accounting office" (10) "customer" (4) "treasury" (4) "commerce" (4) "government" (4) 6 Ethics in accounting "order" (12) 35 "tax evasion" (6) "deception" (5) "responsibility" (4) "carefulness" (4) "forgery" (4) 7 Scientific quality of accounting "recording" (12) 34 "logic" (7) "analysis" (6) "information" (5) "principles" (4) 8 Mathematical operations "operation" (18) 33 math" (9) numbers" (6) CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The findings of this research, present commercial high school students conceptual structures of accounting with various dimensions. It is observed that, commercial high school students conceptual structures of accounting are at a satisfactory level. In the research, the category with the highest frequency is: tools used in accounting. Many examples of meaningful learning can be found throughout the research when the correlations between the concepts are examined. For instance, accounting-accounts, accounting-balance sheet, accounting-recording, accounting-ledgers are associations that reflect meaningful learning. It is not possible to assert that, correlations throughout the research completely reveal the conceptual structure of accounting. The computer programmes response word exists in the category of tools used in accounting. However, students could not associate the computer wtih accounting, although computers are essential for accountants (Abraham, Loughrey and Whalen, 1987; Dillon and Kruck, 2008). Account code and auxiliary account (Örten and Karapınar, 2007) can be listed as possible response words that were not associated with accounting in the account category. It is observed that, principles like public interest, honesty, 31

objectivity and independency among the professional behaviour code principles (Brown, Stocks and Wilder, 2007) adopted by the AICPA do not take place in the professional ethics category. Furthermore, classifying, summarizing and reporting concepts which take place in the scientific definitions of accounting (Atabey, Parlakkaya and Alagöz, 2009; Brock, Herrington, and Ramey, 2006) were not associated with accounting in the scientific quality of accounting category. It is vital for the accounting education that, these subjects that students are not competent enough be determined and that these subjects are concentrated on. It is thought-provoking for the accounting profession and education that there are negative statements about accountants in the accounting professional ethics category. That negative image about accountants in society needs to be corrected as the people who arrange the financial charts correctly and on time and analyze and interpret this information correctly. This mission of correcting the image of the accountants falls to the accounting instructors. Illuminating and informative applications that will eliminate students negative thoughts about accountants should be used in the accounting education. One of the most important factors that effects learning is the student s existing knowledge or conceptual structure. Opinions that do not coincide with scientific facts may exist in this conceptual structure. Therefore, students existing conceptual structures must be revealed before or during education and education should be planned accordingly. This way, students can be enabled to make correct connections between their existing old concepts and the new concepts they come across and the learning can be carried up to a higher level. References Abraham, E., Loughrey, C. and Whalen, H. (1987) Computerized practice set in introductory financal accounting, Accounting Education, 2(1), pp. 1-12. Accounting Education Change Commission Position Statement No. 1 Objectives of Education for Accountants, Retrieved 12 August 2010 from: http://aaahq.org/aecc/positionsandissues/pos1.htm. Akdoğan, N. and Sevilengül, O. (2007) Tek düzen muhasebe sistemi uygulaması (Application of union chart accounting system). (Ankara: Gazi Yayınevi). Albrecht, W. S. (2002) Accounting education on the edge, Bized, March/April, pp. 40-45. Albrecht, W. S. and Sack, R.J. (2000) Accounting Education: Charting the Course Through a Perilous Future, Accounting Education Series, Volume No. 16. Retrived 9 August 2010 from: http://aaahq.org/pubs/aesv16/toc.htm. Amernic, J. and Craig, R. (2004) Reform of accounting education in the post-enron era: moving accounting out of shadows, Abacus, 40(3), pp. 342-378. Atabey, N. A., Parlakkaya, R. and Alagöz, A. (2009) Genel muhasebe dönem sonu işlemleri (Accounting end of period procedures), (Turkey: Atlas Kitabevi). Aysan, A. M. (1979) Türkiye de muhasebe eğitimi nasıl yapılmalıdır? (How should accounting education be carried in Turkey?). I. Türkiye Muhasebe Eğitimi Sempozyumu, pp. 250-260. Bahar, M. Johnstone A.H. and Sutcliffe R.G. (1999) Investigation of students cognitive structure in elementary genetics through word association tests, Journal of Biological Education, No: 33, pp. 134-141. Ballantine, J. A., Duff, A. and Larres, P. M. (2008) Accounting and business students approaches to learning: A longitudinal study, Journal of Accounting Education, No: 26, pp. 188-201. 32

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