Abstract This paper presents a model that depicts the accounting education process as a constrained optimization problem, where the goal is to produce accounting graduates who possess competencies that match the competencies demanded by those who employ them. Decision parameters under the control of accounting educators include admission and recruitment policies, curriculum, course content, and instructional methods, while student, faculty, and institutional limitations impose constraints on the process. The model builds upon the accounting education research framework developed in Williams et al. (1988) and the recent literature in accounting education on outcomes assessment (e.g., Herring and Izard 1992; 1992-93 AAA Committee Report; Deppe et at. 1991), and is shown to be useful in three basic ways: (1) it provides a way to organize the existing educational research in accounting; (2) it can be used to prescribe actions to accounting educators; and (3) it can help to identify questions that should be addressed by accounting education researchers.
Frederickson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.