Abstract Recently, academics and professionals have focused much attention on the education of accounting students. Despite this attention, there is little empirical data available on current teaching practices in upper-level accounting courses. This study surveys professors to gather information on pedagogical styles used in the first intermediate accounting course. This information can serve as an assessment of current practice and as a benchmark against which to measure future progress. The study concentrates on issues such as examination composition, how students are evaluated, how class time is spent, and the extent to which communication skills are stressed in classroom activities. Survey responses from over 300 intermediate accounting instructors are analyzed. The results indicate that while traditional methods of testing and evaluating students predominate, some faculty are stressing communication skills and using pedagogical approaches that foster active learning.
Dow et al. (Sat,) studied this question.