ERIC ED449726: Learning by Doing: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Accounting. AAHE's Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines.

233 Pages·1998·2.3 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
HE 033 726
ED 449 726
Rama, D. V., Ed.
AUTHOR
Learning by Doing: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning
TITLE
in Accounting. AAHE's Series on Service-Learning in the
Disciplines.
American Association for Higher Education, Washington, DC.
INSTITUTION
ISBN-1-56377-008-3
ISBN
PUB DATE 1998-00-00
232p.; For other documents in this series, see HE 033
NOTE
727-743. Initial funding for this series was supplied by
Campus Compact. Published in cooperation with KPMG Peat
Marwick Foundation.
AVAILABLE FROM American Association for Higher Education, One Dupont
Circle, Suite 360, Washington, DC 20036-1110 ($28.50). Tel:
202-293-6440; Fax: [phone]; E-mail: [email protected]; Web
site:www.aahe.org>.
Collected Works
General (020)
PUB TYPE
Books (010)
MF01/PC10 Plus Postage.
EDRS PRICE
Accountants; *Accounting; *Business Education; College
DESCRIPTORS
Faculty; College Students; Community Services; Computer Uses
in Education; Consultants; Ethics; Free Enterprise System;
Higher Education; Intellectual Disciplines; School Community
Programs; *Service Learning; Student Participation; Student
Volunteers; Taxes
Tax Preparation
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT
This volume is part of a series of 18 monographs on service
learning and the academic disciplines. It is designed to (1) develop a
theoretical framework for service learning in accounting consistent with the
goals identified by accounting educators and the recent efforts toward
curriculum reform, and (2) describe specific active learning strategies that
are useful and powerful teaching tools. Part 1, "Theoretical Essays on
Service-Learning in Accounting," includes: "Service-Learning: An
Active-Learning Approach for Accounting Education" (D.V. Rama);
"Service-Learning: The Accountants for the Public Interest Perspective"
I Understand': Service-Learning in
(Wayne G. Bremser); "'What I Do,
Accounting Curricula" (William L. Weis); and "Service-Learning in Accounting:
A Department Chair's Perspective" (Alfonso R. Oddo). Part 2, "Implementation
Approaches," includes: "Service-Learning: A 'Free Enterprise' Model for
Accounting Faculty" (Curtis L. DeBerg); "Expanding the Boundaries of
Accounting Education through Service-Learning" (Lynn M. Pringle);
"Service-Learning in Accounting: A Role for VITA Tax Programs" (Janice Carr);
"Tax Assistance Program Provides Service-Learning at Notre Dame and St.
Mary's College" (Ken Milani); "Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and the Use of
Technology" (Nathan Oestreich, Carol Venable, and Martha Doran);
"Service-Learning Project in the Accounting Information Systems Course:
Implementation without the Benefit of Hindsight" (Alfred R. Michenzi);
"Reaching Our Goals Together in Service-Learning: A Multi-Semester Accounting
Information Systems Course Implementation" (Margarita Maria Lenk);
"Service-Learning in a Capstone Course" (James W. Woolley); "Teaching
Professional Accounting Ethics with Service-Learning" (Susan P. Ravenscroft);
"Student Consulting Organizations: An Alternative Approach to
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
Service-Learning" (Timothy S. Mech); and "Service-Learning Projects in
Accounting: Implementation Strategies" (D.V. Rama). An Afterword by Paul
Locatelli is titled: "Service-Learning in Accounting Education." A 37-item
annotated bibliography is included.
(All papers include references.)
(SM)
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
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Published in cooperation with KPMG Peat Marwick Foundation
AAHE'S SERIES ON SERVICE-LEARNING IN THE DISCIPLINES
Learning by Doing
Concepts and Models
for Service-Learning
in Accounting
D.V. Rama, volume editor
Edward Zlotkowski, series editor
A PUBLICATION OF THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
3
Published in cooperation with KPMG Peat Marwick Foundation
Special Acknowledgment
AAHE is grateful to the KPMG Foundation
for its generous support in helping to make possible
widespread distribution of this volume.
Learning by Doing: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Accounting
(AAHE's Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines)
D.V. Rama, volume editor
Edward Zlotkowski, series editor
© 1998 American Association for Higher Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States
of America.
Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent
those of the American Association for Higher Education or its members.
About This Publication
This volume is one of eighteen in AAHE's Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines to be released
during 1997-1999. Additional copies of this publication, or others in the series from other disciplines,
can be ordered using the form provided on the last page or by contacting:
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
One Dupont Circle, Suite 360
Washington, DC 20036-1110
ISBN 1-56377-008-3
ph 202/293-6440 x11, fax [phone]
ISBN (18 vol. set) 1-56377-005-9
www.aahe.org
4
Contents
Foreword
About This Series
Edward Zlotkowski
vii
Introduction
D.V. Rama
1
Part 1
Theoretical Essays on Service-Learning in Accounting
Service-Learning: An Active-Learning Approach for Accounting Education
D.V. Rama
3
Service-Learning: The Accountants for the Public Interest Perspective
Wayne G. Bremser
19
"What I Do, I Understand": Service-Learning in Accounting Curricula
William L Weis
37
Service-Learning in Accounting: A Department Chair's Perspective
Alfonso R. Oddo
53
Part 2
Implementation Approaches
Service-Learning: A "Free Enterprise" Model for Accounting Faculty
Curtis L De Berg
65
Expanding the Boundaries of Accounting Education
Through Service-Learning
Lynn M. Pringle
85
Service-Learning in Accounting: A Role for VITA Tax Programs
Janice Carr
101
Tax Assistance Program Provides Service-Learning at Notre Dame
and St. Mary's College
Ken Milani
117
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and the Use of Technology
Nathan Oestreich, Carol Venable, and Martha Doran
125
Service-Learning Project in the Accounting Information Systems Course:
Implementation Without the Benefit of Hindsight
Alfred R. Michenzi
133
J
Reaching Our Goals Together in Service-Learning:
A Multi-Semester Accounting Information Systems
Course Implementation
Margarita Maria Lenk
147
Service-Learning in a Capstone Course
157
James W. Woolley
Teaching Professional Accounting Ethics With Service-Learning
167
Susan P. Ravenscroft
Student Consulting Organizations:
An Alternative Approach to Service-Learning
Timothy S. Mech
191
Service-Learning Projects in Accounting: Implementation Strategies
203
D.V. Rama
Aftetword
Service-Learning in Accounting Education
209
Paul Locatelli
Appendix
Annotated Bibliography
213
List of Contributors
227
Foreword
KPMG is pleased to support the American Association for Higher Education
and the American Accounting Association's Teaching and Curriculum Sec-
tion by providing funding to help distribute Learning by Doing. To quote the
Teaching and Curriculum Section:
In our efforts to engage students in their learning of accounting, many of
us have become interested in new learning strategies that have the power
to help students become active, lifelong learners and better appreciate the
broad, social significance of their work as accounting professionals. This
volume on service-learning in accounting illustrates a specific active-learn-
ing strategy that many have found to be a useful, even powerful, teaching
tool.
Another publication that relates to a broader definition of learning is the
Accounting Education Change Commission monograph Intentional Learning:
A Process for Learning to Learn in the Accounting Curriculum, by Marlene C. Fran-
cis, Timothy C. Mulder, and Joan S. Stark (American Accounting Association,
1995).
KPMG is a national supporter of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), and
one of the papers in Learning by Doing captures the way SIFE students have
engaged in service-learning. We are also pleased to sponsor Beta Alpha Psi,
The National Accounting Fraternity, and the Golden Key National Honor
Society. All three of these organizations have programs for student members
that offer significant opportunity for service-learning, much of which is
directed toward student involvement in the broader community.
KPMG supports these types of activities, which cause students to work
together in teams and bring their talents to bear on curricular and extracur-
ricular projects.
KPMG Peat Marwick Foundation
7
FOREWORD
V
About This Series
by Edward Zlotkowski
The following volume, Learning by Doing, represents the fifth in a series of
monographs on service-learning and the academic disciplines. Ever since
the early 1990s, educators interested in reconnecting higher education not
only with neighboring communities but also with the American tradition of
education for service have recognized the critical importance of winning
faculty support for this work. Faculty, however, tend to define themselves
and their responsibilities largely in terms of the academic disciplines/inter-
disciplinary areas in which they have been trained. Hence, the logic of the
present series.
The idea for this series first surfaced approximately four years ago at a
meeting convened by Campus Compact to explore the feasibility of devel-
oping a national network of service-learning educators. At that meeting, it
quickly became clear that some of those assembled saw the primary value
of such a network in its ability to provide concrete resources to faculty work-
ing in or wishing to explore service-learning. Out of that meeting there
developed, under the auspices of Campus Compact, a new national group of
educators called the Invisible College, and it was within the Invisible College
that the monograph project was first conceived. Indeed, a review of both the
editors and contributors responsible for many of the volumes in this series
would reveal significant representation by faculty associated with the Invis-
ible College.
If Campus Compact helped supply the initial financial backing and
impulse for the Invisible College and for this series, it was the American
Association for Higher Education (AAHE) that made completion of the proj-
ect feasible. Thanks to its reputation for innovative work, AAHE was not only
able to obtain the funding needed to support the project up through actual
publication, it was also able to assist in attracting many of the teacher-schol-
ars who participated as writers and editors.
Three individuals in particular deserve to be singled out for their contri-
butions. Sandra Enos, former Campus Compact project director for Integrat-
ing Service and Academic Study, was shepherd to the Invisible College proj-
ect. John Wallace, professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota,
was the driving force behind the creation of the Invisible College. Without
his vision and faith in the possibility of such an undertaking, assembling the
human resources needed for this series would have been very difficult.
and all that followed in its wake
Third, AAHE's endorsement
was due
largely to AAHE vice president Lou Albert. Lou's enthusiasm for the mono-
8
VII
ZLOTKOWSKI
graph project and his determination to see it adequately supported have
been critical to its success. It is to Sandra, John, and Lou that the monograph
series as a whole must be dedicated.
Another individual to whom the series owes a special note of thanks is
Teresa Antonucci, who, as AAHE project assistant, has helped facilitate
much of the communication that has allowed the project to move forward.
The Rationale Behind the Series
A few words should be said at this point about the makeup of both the gen-
eral series and the individual volumes. At first glance, accounting may seem
like an unusual choice of disciplines with which to link service-learning.
However, "natural fit" has not played a determinant role in helping decide
which disciplines/interdisciplinary areas the series should include. Far more
important have been considerations related to the overall range of disci-
plines represented. Since experience has shown that there is probably no
disciplinary area where service-learning cannot be fruitfully employed to
strengthen students' abilities to become active learners as well as responsi-
ble citizens, a primary goal in putting the series together has been to demon-
strate this fact. Thus, some rather natural choices for inclusion
disciplines
have been passed
such as anthropology, geography, and religious studies
over in favor of other, sometimes less obvious selections. Accounting repre-
sents the first volume that emphatically demonstrates service-learning's
broad educational relevance.
If a concern for variety has helped shape the series as a whole, a con-
cern for legitimacy has been central to the design of the individual volumes.
To this end, each volume has been both written by and aimed primarily at
academics working in a particular disciplinary/interdisciplinary area. Many
individual volumes have, in fact, been produced with the encouragement
and active support of relevant discipline-specific national societies. About
this Accounting volume, the Teaching and Curriculum Section of the Amer-
ican Accounting Association says: "In our efforts to engage students in their
learning of accounting, many of us have become interested in new learning
strategies that have the power to help students become active, lifelong
learners and better appreciate the broad, social significance of their work as
accounting professionals. This volume on service-learning in accounting
illustrates a specific active-learning strategy that many have found to be a
useful, even powerful, teaching tool."
Furthermore, each volume has been designed to include its own appro-
priate theoretical, pedagogical, and bibliographical material. Especially with
regard to theoretical and bibliographical material, this design has resulted in
considerable variation both in emphasis and in level of discourse. Thus, for
VIII
9
ACCOUNTING