Teaching Accounting Concepts Versus Applications: An Analysis of Student Attitudes

Accounting faculty have long debated the usefulness and appropriateness of their teaching endeavor. One of the central themes in this continuing discussion is that of teaching concepts versus teaching applications of current accounting principles. In order to empirically address this issue, students' attitudes toward the conceptual aspects and toward the practical application aspects of financial accounting were assessed. This research also reports on the development and validation of an instrument that measures attitudes of students toward these aspects of financial accounting. The instrument demonstrated high reliability with both intermediate and introductory students. Intermediate students were found to distinguish between attitudes toward the conceptual and application aspects of financial accounting, while the introductory students were found to have only a single overall attitude toward financial accounting. Implications for accounting education are discussed.