Teaching Innovative Accounting Topics: Student Reaction to a Course in Social Accounting

Abstract: Accounting students experience degree programmes with a fairly ‘traditional’ range of topics that are taught with an emphasis on technique and learning the ‘status quo’. To the extent that a topic may challenge this pattern by emphasizing new concepts, questioning existing concepts, being more concerned with what accounting ‘might be’ rather than current practice, or some combination of these, some topics may be considered ‘innovative’ additions to the curriculum. Social accounting is an innovative accounting topic that has attracted considerable attention in the literature. This paper reports on an implementation dilemma encountered in a course on social accounting resulting from a clash between preferred student learning attributes and those embodied in social accounting. The use of action oriented teaching strategies to counteract this dilemma is identified. Similar problems and solutions may be applicable for other innovative accounting topics.