Professor Elam

Wed April 13, 2011

I have visited at length with the intermed I and II classes about how we do what we do in those courses. As evidence of my sincere interest and general dissatisfaction with all existing texts, I sent this to Cengage, Pearson, and McGraw Hill.

I am printing this to show my concern and to elicit your comments. 

Subject: Intermediate Accounting – Dennis Rants On

All

1. Accounting books are selected by accounting academics not the

students. This is why the books have gotten so long and heavily

footnoted. In addition all feature dazzling displays of fancy math

formulas. While this may send spirits soaring  of the accounting types

that frequent the Journal of Accountancy, it does little for bewildered

students that never mastered algebra I. 

2. Since the the big publishers compete in the same market and listen to

the same 'peer reviewed' academics, the three books from Cengage MH and

Wiley are remarkably similar, right down to the topics covered in the

same numbered chapters. So all are putting out the same product, rather

like the old days of GM Ford Chrysler, a big three but all the same. 

3. It took VW and Toyota to break up the perception of what a car should

be, American Motors never did it. Different out of the box thinking,

like making tinted glass, reclining seats and four speed transmissions

standard as well as the FM radio, way back in 1972 on the Toyota

Corolla. Detroit never recovered. 

4. The big books of intermed acct such as they exist are probably fine

for the top 50 schools where there is at least some sort of entrance

requirement. and there is a perform or you are out requirement if a

grade level is not maintained . But this is not the case for the other

1150 colleges in America.  The book is grossly unfair to these students who have a knowledge and background gap. 

But as they discover that is not accounting; it is bookkeeping. The other big gap is the assumption gap. All these books assume students know for example, what a put, call , or derivative is and how it works. Unless you know that you could not possibly understand the entries for them. 

5. Most of the community colleges only make this worse. They take the

students money and pass them on citing outstanding completion rates.

Most of the intermed students I get cannot complete a standard ten

column worksheet with adjusting entries. This was the gold plated

standard when I took principles in 1967; yet just this semester in

Intermed II one student have never encountered a ten column worksheet. 

6. So what happens?  Well the students struggle,

7. Now look at www.khanacademy.org. It contains over 2,000 short videos,

not on accounting by close enough to get the idea, lots and lots of math

videos on every subject imaginable. 

8. Does watching a video teach one in the same way that reading the

chapter and working a problem teaches one, I frankly doubt it, I think

it is like a power point good exposure.I suspect a video like a power point can

gain some familiarity but not understanding or content mastery.I bought a visual learner set of DVDs on Excel, it helped but honestly I did not learn how to use Excel, the reason is that I was watching, I was not participating. Only active involvement results in knowledge gain. 

9. Give the textbook companies credit, there are power points, games,

podcasts, m/c exams, you name it. There are books now written for

students that will not read the book (a conundrum indeed)  with special

boxes in the margins, cornerstone from cengage and whitecotton from MH

are both good examples. But if this is the case perhaps we should

jettison the text and just focus on the boxes. 

10.Derivatives are more important than stocks which is why D Bank wants

the NYSE for Euronext, not the stock exchange part of the NYSE. Yet

there is scant coverage of derivatives in any of the books. I dare say

the average acct teacher cannot explain the difference between a put and

a call, but I digress. 

11.  I suspect the better idea would be a combination of the

presentation form of

Schaums Accounting Books, these are outline and short paragraph

interspersed with solved examples, like the 1960s accounting books no

fancy pictures or stories about companies that the students do not read

anyway

Gleim's outline with mandatory questions to answer, it is a  format by

topic, Gleim is a leading provider of cpa review texts, the arrangement

of their books after forty years of working with students is  no

accident. 

I would include  the graphics and tables that are pretty well done in

the three main books today. But even then many of these are overly

complex. 

There needs to be more requirement of content mastery, yes, if you

cannot do the ten column worksheet, you cannot answer simple questions

about what financial statement which account will appear. 

And so like the automobile world of the late 1960s the accounting world

awaits some out of the box thinking. 

VW took 10% of the American market in 1967 with a car designed in

Germany in the 1930s, that lacked an air conditioner no less. 

12. I don't know the 'guys in the carpeted offfices' at the big firms.

But I do  know I am right about the failure of 1,000 page intermed books

to resonate with the students. 

Arguments for and agains e books are only about the delivery system, not

the method of teaching.   And frankly e books are about where personal

computers were in 1980, no common platform. Right now a paper book is

still easier to use. 

The Datsun 240 Z was a faux Jaguar XKE in affordable form, it changed

everything. Japan was the new innovator, not Detroit.  Send this e mail

around, please, somewhere there is 

the next 240 Z of accounting textbooks. It does not exist yet but here

is the outline for what it ought to be.