Summary
Mnemonic techniques are learning strategies which can enhance learning and improve recall of the information learned. Research has proven that mnemonics are effective aids in learning new, abstract, and/or complex concepts. Most auditing courses are conceptual in nature. Students often experience difficulty understanding auditing concepts, which may appear abstract due to the students' lack of an adequate frame of reference necessary to analyze and understand these concepts. This difficulty can be attributed to students' lack of exposure to real-world accounting systems, source documentation, evidence accumulation, or report writing. Although coursework cannot provide the frame of reference achieved through work experience, accounting educators can provide students with techniques that boost their recall of auditing concepts, thereby, equipping students with a significant advantage academically and in the marketplace. This paper presents mnemonic techniques which can be applied to teach basic auditing concepts more effectively and better prepare students for professional auditing careers.
See the full content of this document
Extract
The Use/Application of Mnemonics As a Pedagogical Tool in Auditing
INTRODUCTION
Auditing encompasses a comprehensive, complex body of knowledge. Auditing students must demonstrate a detailed knowledge of auditing concepts in order to pass the auditing section of the CPA exam and enter public practice; a good general knowledge is insufficient. These students must also demonstrate a detailed knowledge of other accounting and business concepts to pass remaining sections of the exam. Given the amount and complexity of information the accounting student is required to learn, accounting educators must assist their students with the methodological aspects of learning the subject matter as well as the content itself. In other words, we must help our students learn how to learn. Accounting educators must break down the content to be learned to make it easier to comprehend and remember.The Accounting Education Change Commission and the American Accounting Association (Francis, Mulder, and Stark, 1995) call for "intentional learning in the accounting curriculum" whereby students are called upon to be active learners rather than passive listeners, and accounting educators called to create classroom environments and employ teaching strategies to promote intentional (active) learning. Educators have to replace staid teaching methods with techniques that motivate students to practice and learn. One such teaching technique, which is the focu...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
