Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions on
Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
Ronald Woan
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Abstract
The primary objective of this research is to examine the potential differences in ex
post perceptions between accounting-finance majors (AF) and other majors (NAF) of the
first college-level financial accounting course and, if differences exist, whether these
differences lead to differences in opinions regarding topical coverage. The secondary
objective is to examine the consistency of these perceptions and opinions over two time
periods. In contrast with earlier research which predominantly used univariate statistical
methods for multiple hypothesis testing, multivariate statistical techniques are used in
this study. The results of this study indicate that, as expected, there are significant overall
perception differences between AF and NAF cohorts; but, surprisingly, these differences
do not lead to significant difference in opinions regarding topical coverage even though
univariate approach indicates significant differences on some topical variables. The
topical variables show that there are important differences between US students and
Australian students: Australian students on average prefer user approach, whereas US
students on average favor the traditional preparer approach. US students seem to treat
the first course as providing an opportunity to learn a business language. This calls to
question the wisdom or practice of offering user-oriented course for NAF cohort in US
based on the assumption that NAF cohort is more receptive to user-oriented approach.
Furthermore, the perception variables provide discriminant function that classifies the
subjects accurately both within sample and for validation sample. Logistic regression
provides similar results. Finally, there is no statistically significant difference of
students’ perceptions and topical opinions between the two time periods indicating the
results are statistically robust and not sample-specific. These in combination lend further
credence to the chosen variables.
I. Introduction
In response to the accounting profession’s dissatisfaction with the quantity and
quality of the accounting graduates the Accounting Education Change Commission
(AECC) was appointed by the American Accounting Association in 1989 to serve as a
catalyst to improve the academic preparation of accountants. AECC subsequently issued
two position statements: Objectives of Education for Accountants: Position Statement
No. One (AECC, 1990) and The First Course in Accounting: Position Statement No. Two
(AECC, 1992). AECC specifically underscored the importance of the first college-level
accounting course. In its first position statement AECC states: “The introductory
accounting course should be given special attention. It must serve the interests of students
who are not going to enter the profession as well as those who are.” (p.309). In its second
position statement, AECC observes, “For those who decide to major in accounting or
other aspects of business, the course is an important building block for success in future
15
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
on Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
academic work” (p.249). It calls for changes in both the objective and teaching methods
in the first accounting course sequence.
The AECC’s clarion call for changes in the first accounting course sequence
spawned a spate of research studies and curriculum revisions. Some of the more
important studies will be reviewed in the next section. This study is motivated by a
survey study on Australian students’ perceptions of an introductory accounting course by
three Australian accounting and finance professors, Tickell, Lim & Balachandran (TLB,
2012). It will be interesting to compare US students’ attitudes with Australian students’.
In contrast with earlier research studies which predominantly used univariate
statistical methods for multiple hypothesis testing, multivariate statistical techniques are
used for hypotheses testing in this study. This multivariate statistical approach has the
advantage of exploiting the interrelated nature of the perception as well as the topical
variables and providing the correct type one error rate of rejecting the null hypotheses
when they are true. Univariate statistical techniques will be employed for comparison
with prior studies and as supplements to provide further detailed descriptive analyses. In
addition, both discriminant analysis and logistic regression are used to examine the
discriminatory power of the chosen perception variables in terms of accuracy of
classification of the accounting-finance majors (AF) and other majors (NAF). Jackknife
technique is used to cross-validate and enhance the credibility of the result.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows: In section I, a brief review of
the past studies related to the first accounting course is provided. Section II describes the
data. Section III presents the multivariate robustness tests. Section IV presents the
univariate summary statistics and analysis. Section V presents both the multivariate
statistical test results and the classification results from discriminant function and logistic
regression. And section VI provides the conclusion.
II. Literature Review
For ease of discussion, this area of research studies will be classified into two
categories: proactive and descriptive. The proactive category refers to those publications
reporting results from experimenting with the recommendations AECC made in its
Position Statement number 2. This involves changes in contents, structure as well as
pedagogy. The descriptive research category refers to studies empirically investigating
various aspects of the existing traditional rule-based preparer approach to the first
accounting course. The main objective here is to provide empirical evidence of the
impact of the existing first course on the students taking the course.
II.1 Proactive Research
Saudagran (1996) describes his initiative in developing and implementing a first
accounting course with the objective of providing students “with a broad-based
introduction to accounting rather than the narrow bookkeeping perspective offered under
the traditional approach.” (p. 83). His approach is extensive and broader than the
recommendations made by the AECC. He provides GPA data to show that his initiative
seems to have improved the “GPAs of accounting majors taking the redesigned first
accounting course” (p. 94). Huefner (2002) provided some details about how he
16
Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
restructured the first accounting course in terms of accounting models. He starts the
course with easy intuitive cash flow model followed by models with increasing
complexity. Accrual income model including debit-credit manual and computerized
processing was not covered until almost toward the middle of the course. His assessment
reported positive student responses and a dramatic increase in student satisfaction.
Not all proactive initiatives were successful though. Christensen (2004) reported
that he and his accounting colleagues developed a new first accounting course, “Using
Financial Information” (p.119), in which the accounting cycle and bookkeeping were
dropped and understanding financial statements, social and environmental contexts of
business, and usefulness of accounting to market economy interlocutors were
emphasized. The results were disastrous. The students, accounting and non-accounting
majors alike, were confused and considered the approach counterintuitive. This failure
shows that students’ perceptions on the subject need be taken into consideration in course
design or redesign in order for it to be successful. The next category of research fills this
need by investigating students’ perceptions on the first financial accounting course.
II.2 Descriptive Research
Many researchers and individuals have claimed that the first course had generated
negative impression among good quality students and turned them away from taking
accounting as major (e.g., Baldwin and Ingram 1991; Saudadgran 1996; Huefner, 2002).
Riordan and St. Pierre & Matooney (1996) conducted a research on more than 4,800
students over a four-year span (1989-1993) at James Mason University and University of
Rhode Island. Their objective was to investigate whether or not the introductory
accounting course discourages quality undergraduate students from majoring in
accounting. Their results clearly indicated that, using cumulative average GPA as
measure of “quality”, the introductory accounting course did not discourage quality
students from taking accounting as major.
Using a questionnaire consisting of eleven perception questions regarding the first
financial accounting course, Geiger & Ogilby (2000) investigated students’ perceptions
of the first financial accounting course both at the first and last week of the course. Their
results indicated that students generally had positive perceptions, with accounting majors
generally having significantly higher positive perceptions than other majors. However,
except for the “Enjoy” item, these positive perceptions declined at the end of the course
for both accounting and nonaccounting majors. But, despite these negative changes in
perceptions, nonaccounting majors expressed that they enjoyed the course more than they
expected. Furthermore, the logistic regression identified two changes in perception
(usefulness for career, boring) and three other variables (final grade, initial selection of
majors and categorical “teacher” variable) as statistically significant predictors of
students’ selection of accounting major. However, they failed to find any explanation for
the significance of the “teacher” variable after extensive investigation. The coefficient for
“boring” has a positive sign for the total sample; but, the sign turns negative in the subsample of 77 initially undecided majors. These unexplainable significance and
unexpected conflicting signs of coefficients could be due to multicollinearity or simply
chance.
Adopting the methodology used by Geiger & Ogilby, TLB (2010) used a
questionnaire consisting of 13 questions to elicit students’ perceptions regarding
usefulness, interest, and challenge of the first accounting course. In addition, they asked
17
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
on Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
students’ end-of-the-course opinions regarding the coverage of 14 accounting topics. For
the topical coverage questions, AF gave significantly higher agreement responses for
thirteen of the fourteen questions. Both cohorts gave “understanding financial reports”
the strongest and virtually identical level of agreements. For the perception variables,
there were significant differences between AF and NAF for about half of the variables.
These results are hard to interpret. The authors inappropriately used the independent two
sample t-statistics and Mann-Whitney U statistics to test the difference between Survey I
and Survey II since the same students were involved in both surveys. However, the data
did indicate decreasing favorable perceptions for both AF and NAF. TLB went on to use
principal component technique to extract two components, labeled as “interesting” and
“useful”. The t-test and Mann-Whitney U test showed that AF has significantly higher
favorable responses than NAF on the two components.
In summary, the descriptive research demonstrated that students, regardless of
major, had favorable perceptions of the first college-level financial accounting course
both before and after taking the course. However, these favorable perceptions declined
after taking the course. Other than this conclusion, the rest of the results were difficult to
interpret since the variables are correlated (as evidenced by TLB’s decision to use factor
analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the perception variables). Furthermore, with
large sample sizes and five-point Likert scale variables common to all these studies,
statistically significant results may have little, if any, practical significance. Multivariate
statistics will be used in the following section to remedy this deficiency.
III. Data Source and Description
The survey questions used in this study were similar to those used by TLB with
minor modifications. These questions were adopted for comparison purpose. All the
responses were based on five-point Likert scale: 1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3neutral, 4- agree and 5-strongly agree. To give students some time to reflect on and digest
the significance of the first accounting course, the survey questionnaires were
administered at the beginning of the second business core-required college-level
accounting course which is basically an introductory managerial accounting course. The
author believes that more accurate student opinions and perceptions of the first financial
accounting course could be elicited in this way. The questionnaires were administered at
the first class during the 2008-2009 academic year (2008 sample) and again during 20112012 academic year (2011 sample) in one of the largest university in the Pennsylvania
State System of Higher Education. The final sample includes 66 AF and 111 NAF
students for the 2008 sample and 18 AF and 25 NAF students for the 2011 sample. The
2011 sample will be used for the test of robustness of students’ perceptions and opinions
on topical coverage over time only. Table 1 presents the perception variables and Table 2
presents the topical variables together with symbols to be used in the following
discussions.
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Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
Table 1
Symbols & Perception Statements
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
P12
P13
I expect the introductory accounting course to be useful for day-to-day life
The introductory accounting course involved IT applications and quantitative analysis
The introductory accounting course introduced me to several accounting theories
I believe that tutorial assistance should be available for the introductory accounting course
I believe that computer lab assistance should be available for the introductory accounting course
The introductory accounting course should be compulsory for all business majors
I would have taken the introductory accounting course even if it had not been required
I expect the materials I learned in the introductory accounting course to be useful for my career in
the future
I expect the materials I learned in the introductory accounting course to be useful for other subjects
in my educational program
I would like a career in the accounting field
I have a reasonable chance of getting a job that requires an accounting background
The introductory accounting course was challenging
The introductory accounting course was interesting
Table 2
Symbols & Topics
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T6
T7
T8
T9
T10
T11
T12
T13
T14
T15
Understanding financial reports
Completing financial reports
Accrual accounting (revenue and matching principles)
Recording transactions into a computerized accounting system
Estimate of uncollectible-account expense (% of sales, % of accounts receivables, etc.)
Financial ratio analysis (current ratios, debt to equity ratio, etc.)
Different forms of business ownership (proprietorship, partnership, and corporation)
Accounting conceptual framework (accounting objectives, assumptions, recognition/measurement
issues, etc.)
Double entry accounting (debit-credit rules)
Recording transactions into a manual accounting system
Historical cost accounting
Alternative to historical cost accounting, such as current market values for assets and liabilities
Worksheet (with trial balances, end-of-period adjustments, adjusted trial balances, etc.)
Inventory valuation methods (FIFO, LIFO, Average Cost, etc.)
Depreciation methods (Straight line, Declining balance, etc.)
19
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
on Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
IV. Multivariate Robustness Tests
To investigate the generalizability of the results of this research a multivariate
analysis of variance (MANOVA) model will be employed to examine the robustness of
students’ responses to the perception and topical variables by using two distinct samples
from two different time periods: 2008 and 2011. There are two factors in this MANOVA
model: Major (AF vs. NAF) and Period (2008 vs. 2011). The following three omnibus
null hypotheses will be separately examined for the perception variables and topical
variables:
H01: There is no interaction between Major and Period factors
H02: AF and NAF have the same centroids, i.e., AF and NAF have the
same means for all the variables
H03: 2008 and 2011 have the same centroids, i.e., 2008 and 2011 have the
same means for all the variables
The results are presented in Tables 3 and 4 for the perception variables and topical
variables respectively. As can be easily seen from the two tables there is only one highly
significant result at .01 level, i.e., difference in perception variables between AF and
NAF cohorts. Absence of Major by Period interaction indicates that the difference in
perception variables for these two cohorts does not differ from each other for the two
periods leading to the conclusion that students’ perception and topical coverage opinion
are robust. Therefore, the following discussion will be based on the 2008 sample only
since it has larger sample sizes overall as well as for the individual two cohorts.
Table 3
Test of Consistency
MANOVA
Perception Variables
(DoF: Degrees of Freedom)
Source
Major
Period
Major by Period
Wilks’ Lambda
.605
.926
.952
F-statistics
10.236
1.251
.790
DoF
13, 204
13, 204
13, 204
Prob
.000
.245
.670
DoF
15, 201
15, 201
12, 201
Prob.
.226
.040
.916
Table 4
Test of Consistency
MANOVA
Topical Variables
(DoF: Degrees of Freedom)
Source
Major
Period
Major by Period
20
Wilks’ Lambda
.914
.883
.961
F-statistics
1.267
1.776
.540
Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
V. Summary Unvariate Statistics
This section presents summary statistics for the 2008 sample. Table 5 presents the
univariate summary statistics including the t-tests for the perception variables. As can be
seen from the table, AF and NAF show statistically significant differences (.05 level) on
all but two perception variables: P5 and P6. The TLB study reported significant
differences on all but four perception variables: P3, P4, P5 and P12. It is somewhat
surprising to find that, in both studies, students from both cohorts perceive that computer
lab assistance (P5) should have been provided and the first accounting course should be
compulsory (P6). The general negative response to P2 is perhaps due to the fact that IT
was generally not used in the first course. The strong negative response from NAF for
P10 is self-explanatory; on the other hand, the negative response from NAF for P11
might be due to students’ lack of experience in the real business world. The negative
response from NAF for P13 (2.86 average) is remarkably close to the TLB result (2.85
average). This is consistent with other studies where students generally considered the
first accounting course to be boring and not interesting.
Table 5
Means and t-test
Perception Variables
Variable
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
P12
P13
AF
Means
3.91
2.89
4.29
4.17
3.72
3,23
3.50
4.53
3.85
4.01
4.14
3.52
3.42
NAF
Means
3.48
2.71
3.86
4.52
3.83
3.23
2.40
3.77
3.34
1.78
2.79
3.96
2.86
t-statistics
2.64
. 823
2.65
-2.59
-.54
-.03
4.96
4.78
2.98
12.32
7.93
-2.77
2.94
Two-tailed
Prob.
.009
.412
.009
.010
.590
.979
.000
.000
.003
.000
.000
.006
.004
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Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
on Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
Table 6
Means and t-test
Topical Variables
Variable
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T6
T7
T8
T9
T10
T11
T12
T13
T14
T15
AF
Means
4.12
3.95
3.79
3.35
3.58
3.35
4.11
3.62
4.21
3.74
3.35
3.55
4.03
4.09
3.98
NAF
Means
3.70
3.50
3.50
3.11
3.49
3.09
4.07
3.36
3.93
3.61
2.91
3.33
3.71
3.86
3.76
t-statistics
2.45
2.47
1.68
1.06
.491
1.35
.208
1.40
1.65
.695
2.47
1.26
1.71
1.31
1.28
Two-tailed
Prob.
.015
.015
.094
.289
.624
.178
.836
.165
.100
.488
.014
.209
.089
.192
.204
Table 6 presents the results for the topics variables. From the table, one can see
that AF and NAF show statistically significant differences only for T1, T2 and T11. Also,
for NAF cohort T7, T9 and T14 have higher means than T1.These results are in stark
contrast with the TLB results which showed significant differences for all variables
except for T1 which has highest means for both cohorts. That T4 (debit-credit double
entry accounting) has second highest (close to highest) mean for NAF came truly as
surprise in light of the fact that many schools offer special sections for nonaccounting
majors using a so-called user approach with debit-credit specifically omitted. In fact, out
of 111 NAF respondents, 16 show neutrality, 51 show “agree” and 34 express “strongly
agree” that debit-credit should be covered. Thus, this data clearly indicate that the socalled user approach may be not only unnecessary, but actually doing a disservice to the
NAF cohort. These findings also indicate that the American students were actually
interested in studying the mechanical accounting procedures thereby treating the first
accounting course as offering a chance to learn accounting as the language of business,
whereas the Australian students were more interested in the understanding of the
financial reports.
Caution has to be exercised in interpreting these statistics because many
interrelated variables were tested simultaneously thereby confounding the significant
level. For example, if one uses .05 significant level, looking at two independent variables
will increase the significant level to about .0975, almost double the intended .05 type one
error rate. In the following section, the multivariate statistical approach will be employed
to avoid this problem.
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Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
VI. Multivariate Statistical Tests & Discriminant Analysis
In this section, multivariate statistics will be used to examine the possible
perception and topical opinion difference from various angles thereby enhancing the
validity of the results. First, Wilks’ lambda and its associated F statistics will be used to
test the differences in perception variables and topical variables. Then, discriminant
analysis and logistical regression will be used to examine the discriminating power of the
selected perception variables thereby validating the practical usefulness of these
variables.
VI.1. Multivariate Statistical Tests
The following two omnibus null hypotheses will be tested:
H01: AF and NAF have the same perception centroids, i.e., AF and NAF have the
same means for all perception variables
H02: AF and NAF have the same topical centroids, i.e., AF and NAF have the
same means for all topical variables
For H01, the following statistics are obtained: Wilks’ lambda of .46 and an F value
of 14.71 with 13 hypothesis and 163 error degrees of freedom. This is significant beyond
any conventional level. Thus, H01 is resoundingly rejected. Excluding the obvious P10
produces similar result. This result confirms the widely held belief that AF and NAF have
significantly different overall perceptions of the first financial accounting course. The
second and perhaps more important question to address is whether this overall perception
difference led to different opinions on the topics to be covered, which is the essence of
H02. For H02, the Wilks’ lambda is .92 and the corresponding F value is .98 with 15
hypothesis and 161 error degrees of freedom. Clearly, this test result indicates that AF
and NAF have extremely similar views and preferences on the topical issue: both are
generally receptive to the traditional preparer approach to the delivery of the first
financial accounting course. This is a surprising and unexpected finding: despite their
significant different perceptions of the first financial accounting course, AF and NAF
cohorts show statistical uniformity in their topical preferences. This would indicate that a
separate first financial accounting course for the NAF using so-called user approach is
not necessary. This is consistent with the argument put forth by Vangemeersch (1997)
and contradicts most of the conclusions reached in earlier (including the TLB) studies
when univariate statistics were used exclusively. Only multivariate statistics taking the
intercorrelations among the variables into consideration allow this valuable unequivocal
conclusion. Unfortunately, the TLB study used only univariate approach and they
concluded that a separate course for NAF is desirable. Without using the more
appropriate multivariate statistics, the TLB conclusion is questionable.
VI.2. Discriminant Analysis and Logistic Regression
In this subsection, discriminant analysis and cross validation will be performed to
enhance the previous omnibus statistical results. First the perception variables were used
to generate a discriminant function, which was then used to classify the same sample into
AF and NAF cohorts. This discriminant function classified seventy-nine percent of the
AF and 94 percent of the NAF cohorts correctly. The perception variables do have high
23
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
on Topical Coverage of the First College-level Financial Accounting Course
discriminating power. However, this power is overestimated because the discriminant
function was obtained from the same sample. To better estimate the discriminating power
of the perception variables, the jackknife method is used iteratively by holding out one
sample data point at a time in estimating the discriminant function. The result indicates
that seventy-nine percent of the AF and ninety-three percent of the NAF cohorts were
classified correctly. Dropping the obvious P10 changed the results only slightly. Logistic
regression was also used to examine the discriminating ability of the perception variables
with similar results (not reported). This shows the robustness of the discriminating ability
of the perception variables thereby justifying the use of these variables to distinguish the
AF and NAF cohorts.
VII. Concluding Remarks
This paper employs multivariate statistical techniques to investigate students’
perceptions regarding the first college-level financial accounting course. From the above
discussion one can easily see that this approach provides more conclusive results. In
particular, it confirms the expected and perhaps obvious fact that accounting-and-finance
majors have perceptions of the course significantly different from those of other majors
taking the course even though AECC indicates that the course is equally important to
both cohorts. Based on univariate statistical analysis, TLB reached the same conclusion
for the Australian students.
However, for the topical coverage issue, surprisingly this study shows clearly that
both AF and NAF cohorts, despite their highly significant perception differences,
uniformly like the traditional preparer approach. This calls into question the alleged
necessity of having a separate first accounting course for NAF majors. Based on
univariate statistical analysis, TLB concluded that a separate user-oriented course is
desirable for the Australian NAF students. However, their conclusion is questionable due
to their use of univariate statistics in a multivariate setting.
A caveat is in order. First, the sample came from two different academic years
only at a single mid-sized school in southwestern Pennsylvania. Some unique
characteristics may exist for these samples making the results non-generalizable to other
schools. Second, except for logistic regression, all other statistics employed require
normality assumption. If there is serious violation of this assumption, the statistical
inference might be compromised. However, inferences made here are based on means:
with large sample size used here, together with Central Limit Theorem (Neter, Kutner,
Nachtsheim & Wasserman, 1996; Morrison 1990), this concern over normality
assumption is not critical. Finally, just like any other empirical research results, further
investigation is always called for to insure the findings are not due to chance. Also, recent
developments in auditing methodologies (Schultz, Bierstaker, O’Donnell, 2010) which
require auditors to incorporate financial analysts’ techniques in auditing seem to make
clear that the afore-mentioned AECC’s call for changes in both the objective and
teaching methods for beginning accounting courses merits serious consideration.
24
Southwest Business and Economics Journal/2012
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Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Students’ ex post Perceptions and Opinions
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