Abstract Research by psychologists suggests that knowing the rationale underlying a rule can enhance an individual's ability to remember that rule, particularly if that explanation is self-generated. This finding has potential implications for accounting educators who often provide their students with explanations of why a particular accounting or tax rule exists. The present study extends this research to an accounting setting by conducting an experiment in which 102 introductory tax students read 10 basic tax rules and then either (1) generated their own explanation for why lawmakers enacted each rule, or (2) read and evaluated an explanation provided by the experimenter. Consistent with the prediction, there is evidence to suggest that the subjects who generated their own explanation were better able to recall the tax rules six days later. The implications of this finding for accounting education are discussed.
Schadewald et al. (Thu,) studied this question.