Using The Monopoly Board Game As An In-Class Economic Simulation In The Introductory Financial Accounting Course

Abstract

This paper discusses using the Monopoly^® board game as an economic simulation exercise to reinforce an understanding of how the accounting cycle impacts financial statements used to evaluate management performance. This approach uses the rules and strategies of a familiar board game to create a simulation of business and economic realities, which then becomes an effective in-class financial accounting practice set. The unique combination of each player’s skill and luck provides for unlimited outcome possibilities, delivering an interpretive result that cannot be predicted. This provides the students with a sense of ownership and “their own business” activities to record and present in class. While there is a definite lack of control over homework assigned by the instructor, the uniqueness of each Monopoly^® team’s game results requires active engagement in class and individual effort on the assignments outside the classroom. The game establishes a valuable parallel for reality in practicing the financial accounting cycle and emphasizing its use by external parties. Because of the dynamic sense of capturing the “real-time” aspect of the game into finished financial statements for analysis, the students start to sense a greater appreciation for the role that accounting plays in business. This makes the first course in financial accounting move more quickly, and students appear to grasp the nature and purpose of the financial accounting system more readily and actively than with other pedagogical approaches previously used. This tends to offset the generally negative reputation of financial accounting courses on campus and also creates positive buzz about the principles of accounting class for students who must take it as a required course.