STRUCTURE OF THE NEW COURSES

The materials developed under the FIPSE grants have focused on real-world cases designed to help students become more effective decision makers using both quantitative and qualitative data. To become effective decision makers in today's society, the project team identified three "knowledge acquisition" objectives:

  1. to introduce students to a broad range of decision making problems that arise in various organizational settings;
  2. to help students become accounting literate; that is, students should be introduced to the role of accounting in a global market economy and to fundamental accounting concepts that underlie the development and communication of information that supports economic decision making; and
  3. to help students become business-organization literate; that is, faculty should assist in helping students gain a basic understanding of business/organization contexts in which economic decision making takes place.

In addition, the team believed that skills in three key areas related to decision making needed to be developed: i) unstructured problem-solving skills; ii) interpersonal skills; and iii) computer skills.

The reengineered introductory accounting sequence have been designed to satisfy skill development objectives in these three areas. Below, the structure of each course is explained, followed by a discussion of the major features that distinguish the new courses from traditional courses in introductory accounting.

Home | Overview | Introduction | Motivation for Change
Structure of the New Courses | Obstacles | Resources | Outcome Measures
Reaction of Interested Parties | Recommendations for Interested Parties | Links | Index