Using Popular Film As A Teaching Resource In Accounting Classes

Abstract

This paper describes a pedagogical experiment that used feature films in a senior accounting class to stimulate development of student competencies and raise ethical issues. Rather than being content driven, this active learning technique focuses on skills development, while engaging the students’ emotions in the learning process. Encompassing three types of knowledge (conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive), the exercises explore concepts of internal control, corporate governance and business ethics. They provide opportunities for accounting students to practice the higher level cognitive skills in Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy and aim to foster students’ emotional commitment to ethical decision-making. Students reacted positively to these activities, finding them most helpful in clarifying the impact of ethical issues. We observed significant differences between the beliefs of groups who participated in these exercises and those who did not, suggesting that this activity can be an effective tool for engaging students and influencing their perceptions about accounting issues.