Faculty Perceptions Of Online Accounting Coursework

Abstract

The perceptions of faculty members, who design and evaluate online accounting coursework content, are an important consideration in determining the quality inherent in such content. This study reports the results of a survey which examines accounting faculty members’ attitudes towards online education (measured as their willingness to accept transfer credit) and various contributing factors that may affect their attitudes.  The results indicate that faculty members harbor significant favoritism toward accepting credit from a student with a traditional, as opposed to an online or blended learning, educational background. Additional results suggest that faculty members’ previous experience with online teaching made no significant impact on their acceptance of transfer credit for the online student; however, faculty members with administrative experience were shown to be more accepting of online education. Furthermore, accounting faculty members generally consider the online educational environment to be less rigorous and less equipped to instill technical and soft skill sets than the traditional educational environment.