Applying Lean
Principles to Design,
Teach, and Assess
Courses
B Y L A K S H M I TAT I K O N D A , C M A , C F M , C PA , P H . D .
BY APPLYING
PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES DEVELOPED IN INDUSTRY, EDUCATORS CAN
REFINE THE CONTENT, PEDAGOGY, ORGANIZATION, AND ASSESSMENT METHODS
EMPLOYED IN THEIR ACCOUNTING COURSES TO HELP ENSURE THAT STUDENTS GAIN THE
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS THAT WILL MAKE THEM MOST DESIRABLE TO EMPLOYERS.
fications. Students don’t perceive an accounting degree
to be as valuable as it used to be.”2 Industry is dissatisfied with the way colleges and universities train management accounting students. A 2004 article describes
the lopsided nature of accounting curricula and makes a
case for a better cost management focus in accounting
curricula.3 As it stands, only a handful of colleges and
universities offer cost management (accounting) courses
beyond the one or two required junior-level courses.
In many respects, today’s accounting education
resembles yesterday’s industry—outdated, fragmented,
inefficient, obsolete, and producing poor-quality products. Just as industry did, accounting education lost its
relevance because of complacency, acceptance of the
status quo, lack of accountability, and lack of customer
understanding.
Over the past few decades, industry underwent phenomenal and revolutionary changes. With tools and
techniques such as Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma,
Total Quality Management, business process reengi-
re accounting professors teaching the right
stuff? This question has been asked many
times over the past 20 years with study
after study concluding that accounting
education is broken and needs fixing. In
1986, the Bedford Report said, “There is little doubt
that current content of professional accounting education, which has remained substantially the same over
the past 50 years, is generally inadequate for future
accounting professionals. A growing gap exists between
what accountants do and what accounting educators
teach….Accountants who remain narrowly educated
will find it more difficult to compete in an expanding
profession. The Committee’s analysis of accounting
practice has indicated that accounting education as it is
currently approached requires major adjustments
between now and the year 2000.”1
A more recent study states, “Accounting leaders
claim that accounting education (as currently structured) is outdated, broken, and needs significant modi-
A
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
many Lean tools and techniques. These tools helped
the company become an automobile giant in spite of its
limited resources. Two books brought the principles of
Lean to the attention of U.S. companies: The Machine
that Changed the World, based on a five-year, $5 million
study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on
the future of the automobile, and Lean Thinking: Banish
Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation.5
Lean is a customer-focused, knowledge-driven business philosophy—a system that provides value to the
customer. It is a systematic way of eliminating waste,
simplifying operations, and aligning all parts of the
value chain. It is not a cost-reduction method; rather, it
seeks continuous improvements and pursuit of perfection. The Lean tenets are:
1. Define Value
2. Identify Value Streams
3. Make Value Flow
4. Pull Systems
5. Pursue Perfection6
neering, and concurrent engineering, the manufacturing
industry made radical changes in the way it conducted
business and gained a better understanding of customer
needs. Lean philosophy and Value Stream Mapping
helped organizations streamline their operations, eliminate waste, and produce cost-effective products. Using
balanced scorecard techniques, organizations developed
metrics to align their vision, strategies, activities, and
performance measures in a more systematic way.
Educators can learn a great deal from these experiences. Accountants in the business world are leaving
behind their historical role as scorekeepers, cost controllers, and creators of reports and are evolving into
cost managers and strategic business partners. By
acknowledging problems, focusing on customer needs,
questioning the status quo, changing mind-sets, and
learning new tools and techniques, academicians can
make significant positive changes and help accounting
education catch up with progress in the business world.
Past articles on this topic focused on applying a
process approach to college- or department-wide
improvements in the curriculum.4 These articles do not
address how to simplify and eliminate nonvalue-adding
activities in a single course. I have experimented with
many industry tools in my cost management (accounting) courses over the past 20+ years. This article looks
at education as a process and describes how individual
instructors can apply Quality Function Deployment
(QFD), cell layout, and the balanced scorecard to
improve the quality of accounting education.
Value is defined by the customer and is the end
result of product functions and features. The value
stream is the chain of processes that create value. Value
Stream Mapping is the physical representation of the
processes that are needed to transform inputs into outputs. Value Stream Mapping increases understanding of
value-adding and nonvalue-adding activities as well as
how inputs are transformed into outputs. Flow is the
rate that items move within the value stream. Removing obstacles (e.g., clutter, blockages, bottlenecks,
defects) makes work move more freely and rapidly. Pull
systems refer to production based on customer
demand—production occurs only when needed by the
next downstream operation.
These tenets also can be applied to educational
processes. By removing the potential obstacles (e.g.,
courses and topics taught out of sequence) in the
process and streamlining the content and delivery
methods, teachers can include more value-adding content in a smooth and organized manner.
LEAN PHILOSOPHY
Lean is a philosophy of continuously simplifying
processes and eliminating waste. It uses simple, easy-tounderstand tools that can be applied in any organizational setting. Drawing on the creative thinking of
employees, companies can apply Lean principles without huge capital expenditures. Organizations applying
Lean principles realize significant results, such as
increases in productivity, decreases in defects, reductions in inventory, and improved on-time deliveries and
cash flows.
The development of Lean is attributed to Toyota
Motor Company. In order to compete with U.S. companies after World War II, cash-starved Toyota developed
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
THE PROCESS
OF
E D U C AT I O N
Education is a process very much like the manufacturing process. Michael Hammer and James Champy
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
CUTTING
DEPARTMENT
ASSEMBLY
DEPARTMENT
defined the business process as a collection of activities
that takes inputs and creates output that is of value to
customers.7 In traditional manufacturing processes, raw
materials and work-in-process move in batches from
one work center to another. The finished units are graded and sorted as acceptable or defective. For example,
the process steps in making chairs include cutting,
assembling, and finishing processes to become a finished chair. At each work center, progress is made in
converting the raw materials, such as wood, into a chair
(see Figure 1).
The process of education is similar. Graduates with
knowledge and skills are the end products of education
processes. The raw material is the knowledge students
have entering the school. The work-in-process is the
students in different stages of degree completion. They
EDUCATION PROCESS
High School
Graduates
High Schools
Transfer Students
Colleges
Teachers
Universities
Curriculum
Administration
Support Staff
Processes
Sophomore
Inputs
Freshman
Suppliers
FINISHED
PRODUCT
move along a series of courses (work centers) where
teachers (operators) add value by teaching them new
knowledge and skills. Over a period of four to five
years, the students are fashioned into the end product:
college graduates (see Figure 2).
The quality of the finished product depends on
many critical aspects, including product design, quality
of raw materials, labor skills, methods, machinery, and
measurements. In a similar manner, the quality of the
graduates depends on the curriculum, course content,
incoming students, teachers, teaching pedagogy, and
assessment methods. Students and employers are the
primary customers of universities. Students select universities based on factors such as academic reputation,
potential for job placement, and cost/tuition. Employers
hire graduates based on the graduate’s quality of knowl-
Junior
Figure 2:
FINISHING
DEPARTMENT
Testing
Advising
Counseling
29
Customers
Society
Employers
Graduates
Teaching
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
Outputs
5th Year
RAW
MATERIALS
MANUFACTURING PROCESS
Senior
Figure 1:
SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
Graduate
Schools
Etc.
edge and skills. As it stands, employers, the ultimate
customers of educational institutions, do not appear to
be happy with the quality of accounting graduates.8
Time constraints often limit teachers from teaching
all the topics and undertaking activities that they would
like to include in a course. By streamlining courses and
eliminating waste, teachers can free up many hours of
time. Waste is any activity that adds cost but provides
no value to the customer. Toyota Motor Company
devised seven classifications for the most common
forms of waste:
1. Overproduction, e.g., producing items not ordered;
2. Waiting, e.g., waiting for a machine to be repaired;
3. Unnecessary Transportation, e.g., moving materials from one work center to another;
4. Over Processing, e.g., adding unnecessary functions and features;
5. Excess Inventory, e.g., having more materials than
needed for production;
6. Unnecessary Movement, e.g., employees overstretching to reach an item on the top shelf; and
7. Defects, e.g., units that do not meet
specifications.9
Waste in education occurs when time and effort are
expended but students do not gain any new knowledge
or skill. Examples of waste are teaching topics already
taught in other courses, excessive review of prerequisite
course materials, unnecessary and redundant introductions, spoon-feeding, teaching obsolete topics, and waiting for unprepared students to catch up. According to
Steve Albrecht and Robert Sack, it appears that the
emphasis in accounting education is not focused on
value-adding activities. Table 1 lists several accounting
activities, their value per hour, and how much emphasis
educators place on each activity when teaching.
Four critical success features of any course are content
(what to teach), pedagogy (how to teach), organization (the
order in which topics should be presented), and assessment (how to evaluate student learning). The ways
teachers select and implement these features into courses significantly impact what students learn and the quality of the end product. Just as engineers design products
according to their perceptions of what customers need,
teachers often make choices based on their expectations
of what students need to learn and perform.
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
ACCOUNTING ACTIVITIES,
VALUE, AND ACADEMIC
EMPHASIS
Table 1:
VALUE/COST
EMPHASIS IN
ACCOUNTING
EDUCATION
Recording business events
,00$10/Hr
High
Summarizing recorded events
,00$30/Hr
High
Converting data into information
,0$100/Hr
Moderate
ACTIVITY
Turning information into knowledge ,0$300/Hr
Low
Making value-added decisions
Low
$1,000/Hr
,00 Source: Steve W. Albrecht and Robert J. Sack, “Accounting Education: Charting
the Course Through a Perilous Future,” Accounting Education Series, Vol. 16,
August 2000.
Unfortunately, industry learned that products
designed without a customer focus generally fail in the
marketplace. For example, lack of customer focus, lowquality products, and higher prices are factors that contributed to the once mighty U.S. automobile industry
losing its market share. From the numerous studies
examining accounting education, it is obvious that current accounting students are not getting the education
that the customer (industry) wants them to.10 Lacking
customer value, accounting education lost students.
The number of accounting graduates in the United
States declined from 60,000 in 1995-1996 to 47,600 in
1998-2000, a 20% drop. Over this period, accounting
students declined by 23%, and high school students
expressing interest in majoring in accounting dropped
by 50%.11 Currently, there appears to be an increase in
accounting students, attributed partly to corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom and to the SarbanesOxley Act. It remains to be seen if this represents a
short-term gain or if the increased interest will last.
Rebuilding quality and relevance into accounting
courses requires understanding the causes of poor quality. The Ishikawa diagram, commonly known as the
Cause and Effect diagram, shown in Figure 3, helps
identify major causes of poor-quality education.12 While
not all causes are controllable, teachers can exercise
substantial control over what to teach, how to teach, and
how to assess student learning.
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
CAUSE-AND-EFFECT DIAGRAM
Figure 3:
CURRICULUM
TEACHERS
Obsolete
STUDENTS
Status Quo
Reluctance to Learn
Irrelevant to
Employee needs
Reseach
Pressures
Lack of
Integration
Lack of Time
Lack of Interest
in Changes
Public Accounting
Domination
Resistance
to Changes
Lack of Awareness
of Industry Needs
Lack of Knowledge
and Skills
IRRELEVANT
ACCOUNTING
EDUCATION
Focus on Lower-Level
Knowledge and Skills
Lack of Incentive
to Improve
Lack of RealWorld Cases
Status Quo
Financial Pressures
Lack of Administrative
Support
Student Opinions
Not Enough Communication
Assignments
ASSESSMENT
Family Issues
Low Expectations
ACADEMIC
ENVIRONMENT
SOCIAL
ENVIRONMENT
of activities used by interdisciplinary design teams. It
starts with linking customers and their expectations to
mechanisms that help fulfill these expectations. Using a
relational matrix, designers identify which product
specifications help or hinder the achievement of specific customer expectations. Information developed from
the relational matrix, along with value ranking by customers and the 80/20 rule, helps designers focus on the
significant functions and features in order to design
C O N T E N T: A P P LY I N G Q UA L I T Y F U N C T I O N
D E P L OY M E N T T O
Culture
D E S I G N ACA D E M I C
COURSES
A product’s design exerts significant influence on downstream operations such as manufacturing, selling, and
warranty repairs. It is not unusual to have 70%-90% of
product cost frozen at the design state.13 An effective
technique used for designing a product is Quality Function Deployment (QFD). QFD is a six-step sequence
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Three cost management courses, A, B, and C, are used
as benchmarks. Employers rank these and currently
designed courses using a scale of 1 (very low) to 5 (very
high). Course C is comparatively stronger in Knowledge
of Relevant Cost Accounting Topics, Ability to Work
with Ill-structured Problems, and Written Communications, whereas the course as it is currently designed is
very strong in Knowledge of Current Cost Management
Tools and Techniques, Oral Communication, and Use of
Technology. The current course design needs to be
strengthened in areas such as Ability to Work with Illstructured Problems and Written Communication.
products that require minimal time and cost and provide maximum customer satisfaction.14
Three broad levels are used to relate customer
expectations to technical specifications: very strong,
strong, and weak. The rankings are subjective and
based on the team’s expertise. The design team determines how well the competitor’s products meet customer expectations compared to the proposed designs.
Once the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed
design are identified, the team uses this information to
make final decisions on which functions and features to
deploy as designed, which to delete, and which to
modify.
Designing a course is very similar. How teachers
select course content, teaching pedagogy, and assessment measures has a significant impact on student
learning, particularly in regard to whether students gain
the desired levels of knowledge and skills. Employers
often mention that current accounting graduates need
skills in communication, critical thinking, problem solving, working in teams, and knowledge of overall business environment and current topics.15 Using QFD,
teachers can identify and select course features that
meet student and employer expectations and that eliminate nonvalue-adding features.
The QFD matrix is created by first selecting a specific area of knowledge or skill set that employers desire
(or expect). The next step is to identify a set of course
specifications, including topics, assignments, and assessment methods, that would best enable students to
acquire the chosen knowledge and skills. Finally, these
specifications are ranked by how well they relate to the
expectations. See Figure 4 for an example using hypothetical data.
Course specifications that show a strong relationship
with customer expectations must be given high priority.
In Figure 4, for example, Case Discussion shows a
very strong relationship with Ability to Work with
Ill-structured Problems. No relationship or a weak
relationship indicates that the specification is either
nonvalue-adding or a low-value item. Lectures do not
show any relationship with Ability to Work with Illstructured Problems. Cost Management Topics do not
show a strong relationship with Knowledge of Ethics
and Values, but Open Class Discussions do.
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
P E DA G O G Y: S T R E A M L I N I N G T E A C H I N G
C E L L L AYO U T
AND
WITH
T O P I C FA M I L I E S
Once the course design is selected, the next step is
deciding how to deliver it. In traditional manufacturing
systems, machines are grouped according to their functions by departments such as cutting, assembly, and finishing. Materials and subassemblies move in batches
from operation to operation, often waiting at each place.
In a Lean environment, equipment is grouped in cells
dedicated to a single product or product family. Within
these cells, machines are arranged according to the
sequence of operations needed to make the product.
This approach eliminates nonvalue-adding activities
such as machine setup, materials movements, and waiting, thus resulting in a smoother and efficient workflow.
Figure 5 shows both traditional and Lean production
layouts.
Most accounting curricula include only one or two
required cost management/accounting courses.16 This
may not be adequate to develop the knowledge and
skills that employers desire, and teachers are faced with
the challenge of squeezing the desired topics and activities into one or two courses.
Just as grouping machines reduces cycle time in
manufacturing, similar efficiencies can be gained by
grouping topics with a common underlying theme as
topic families. Within each family, material can be organized in a series of small, incremental steps—ranging
from routine to complex—with each step building on
the previous ones.
For example, a typical textbook covers product costing in multiple chapters, using titles such as “Job Order
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11
Frequent Feedback
Open Class Discussions
Cost Management Topics
Real-World Projects
Lectures
Technology Assignments
Role Playing of Ethics Issues
3
Team Projects
➔
Employer Needs
2
Written Assignments
Course Specifications ➔
1
Class Presentations
QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT: DESIGNING
A CUSTOMER-ORIENTED COURSE
Case Discussions
Figure 4:
Course Ranking ➔
Knowledge of Relevant Cost
Accounting Topics
Knowledge of Current Business
Environment
A
B
C
4
3
3
5
0
● q q
q ● ● ❍
5
3
4
4
0
● q q
● ❍ ● q
4
4
3
3
0
4
2
1
2
0
3
4
4
5
0
❍ q ❍
5
3
2
1
0
q
4
4
4
5
0
5
4
3
4
0
3
3
2
2
0
● q
❍
●
Oral Communication
SKILLS
Current
Design
q ● ❍ ❍
Knowledge of Ethics and Values
Ability to Work with Ill-structured
Problems
Benchmarks
● q q
❍
&
KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge of Current Cost
Management Tools and Techniques
Scale: 1(L)–5(H)
Written Communication
●
●
q
Adapt to Changes
q q ●
● ●
❍ Strong relationship
q Weak relationship
“product costing” followed by a series of explanations
on how product cost is determined under a variety of
scenarios and costing methods. Figure 6 presents the
layout of product costing chapters in a popular cost
accounting text and in a proposed Lean layout.
This approach not only saves many teaching hours,
but it also shows the impact that the physical aspects of
Costing,” “Process Costing,” “Alternate Product Costing,” “Joint Product and By-Product Costing,” “Product
Costing under JIT,” “Activity-Based Costing,” and so
forth. All these chapters have an underlying theme: calculating the cost of a product or service. Collectively,
these chapters can be treated as a value stream. They
can be taught by using an introduction on the nature of
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
●
●
Use of Technology
● Very strong relationship
q
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
Figure 5:
uncertainty, and decision making under constraints.
Cost Management and Control. The role of the cost
accountant has changed from being the traditional bean
counter and corporate cop to business partner and internal consultant. Numerous tools and techniques for better managing costs have emerged over the past 10-15
years. The underlying focus of these tools is to minimize cost incurrence. They show how to eliminate nonvalue-adding activities and simplify value-adding
activities. With a strong orientation of process understanding and the nature of flexible and committed
PRODUCTION FLOW
Traditional
Storage
Area
Cutting
Department
Assembly
Department
Inspection
Department
Figure 6:
PRODUCT COST TOPICS
Traditional Flow
Lean
Ch. 4: Job
Costing
▲
Assembly
Area
▲
Ch. 15: Joint
Product and
By-product
▲
Inspection
Area
▲
▲
▲
Cutting
Area
Shipping
Area
Ch. 17: Process
Costing
▲
▲
Ch. 18: Process
Costing with
Spoilage
Ch. 20: Product
Costing with
Just-in-Time
▲
Receiving
Area
Ch. 5: ActivityBased Costing
Lean Flow
▲
▲
▲
production have on costing. Here are some additional
topic families and the potential topics within them.
Decision Making. Making decisions requires clear
understanding of cost behavior and its relevance in different scenarios. One way to streamline decision making is to consider the common features of all decisions,
such as alternates, the costs and benefits of each alternate, and qualitative factors. Efficiencies can be gained
by sequencing these chapters as cost behavior patterns,
cost-volume-profit analysis, short-term decision making,
long-term decision making, decision making under
▲
Physical
Aspects of
Production
Transactions
and
Backflush
▲
▲
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
Converting
Physical
Aspects into
Cost Aspects
Basic Aspects
of Product
Costing
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
Product Cost
Computation
ALIGNMENT OF
STRATEGY, ACTIONS,
REWARDS, AND
PERFORMANCE
MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
Figure 7:
resources, cost accounting students found these topics
to be highly practical and adding high value: strategic
cost management, standard costing, activity-based cost
management, target costing, and kaizen costing.
Overhead Cost Management. I believe accounting for
overhead cost as it is currently practiced is a waste.
Spending a lot of time teaching it is also a waste. No
matter how overhead cost is allocated, it does not
change the bottom line. Teachers can achieve efficiency
by sequencing all overhead cost chapters in this manner: (1) tools of allocation—traditional overhead cost
allocations, limitations and dysfunctional behaviors
caused by erroneous overhead cost allocations, and
activity-based costing; (2) tools of elimination—activitybased management and process improvements; and
(3) tools to transform indirect costs into direct costs—
Just-in-Time manufacturing and purchasing, cell layout,
and value streams and product families.
Performance Measurement Systems. Understanding
performance measures requires a strong grasp of concepts such as strategy, organizational behavior, and the
links among an organization’s vision, strategies, activities, performance measurement systems, and reward
systems. This topic family includes traditional items
such as variances, financial measures, and their limitations; the balanced scorecard; budgeting; and responsibility accounting.
Behavioral Issues and Ethics. This group includes
motivational theories, human behavior impact of budgets, standards, and performance measures. Also covered are a code of ethical conduct and ethical issues
triggered by accounting systems and managerial
pressures.
A S S E S S M E N T: A P P LY I N G
SCORECARD
FOR
THE
Vision
Strategic
Objectives
Operating
Goals
Action
Programs
Performance
Measurement
Systems
customer, internal processes, and learning and innovation. A series of “If-Then” statements can be used to
help identify the links in these perspectives.17 Here are
some examples:
◆ If customers are satisfied, then they buy more. If
customers buy more, then profits increase.
◆ If internal processes are improved (e.g., cycle
times, defects, on-time deliveries), then customer
satisfaction increases.
◆ If employees learn and innovate, then internal
processes will improve.
BALANCED
STUDENT LEARNING
Measuring financial metrics alone is no longer sufficient
to gauge the performance of an organization and its
long-term competitiveness. The balanced scorecard
(BSC), a set of measures that align organizational vision,
mission, actions, measures and reward systems, provides
a broad picture of an organization’s performance (see
Figure 7).
The BSC links internal and external aspects that lead
to profit. The focus is on four perspectives: financial,
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
Reward
Systems
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
The old saying, “What gets measured gets
improved,” applies to education as well. The long-term
success of graduates depends not only on their technical knowledge, but also on skills such as communication, ability to work in teams, and critical thinking.
Student learning can be assessed using a balanced
scorecard with multiple perspectives: placement,
employer satisfaction, learning processes, and application and behaviors.
Employer satisfaction is based on the perceived quality of graduates. Knowledge and skills are a function of
the quality of the program and an assessment of student
learning. Grades based on multiple choice tests alone
do not reflect knowledge and skills adequately and
appropriately and, therefore, will not reveal much about
the critical success factors of learning and behaviors.
The ability to learn, apply, and retain knowledge is
linked to a student’s internal processes. As in industry, a
series of “If-Then” statements helps identify the links
among students’ behaviors, actions, and learning:
◆ If students come to classes, then they get a basic
understanding of new material.
◆ If students have a basic understanding of new
material and do their assignments, then they will
gain an in-depth understanding of the material.
◆ If students have an in-depth understanding of the
material, then they can apply it to different
scenarios.
◆ If students apply knowledge and skills, then they
can retain them better and be able to use them
when needed.
Figure 8 shows the links among multiple perspectives both in industry and education. Examples of the
balanced metrics are given in Table 2.
While technical knowledge is relatively easy to learn,
it is not easy to change behaviors, learn new habits, and
do things differently. Consider the habit of cutting
classes. If a student is not in class, he or she may not
understand the material. Missed classes also create
additional work for teachers, such as going over the
material later with students who missed class, creating
make-up quizzes and exams, and collecting and grading
papers separately.
Habits like cutting classes or cramming for tests can
be changed if relevant measures are developed and
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
Figure 8:
BALANCED SCORECARD
Industry
Financial
Perspective
Customer
Perspective
Internal Process
Perspective
Learning &
Innovation
Perspective
Education
Student
Placement
Perspective
Learning
Process
Perspective
Employer
Perspective
Behaviors
Perspective
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SPRING 2007, VOL. 8, NO. 3
ASSESSING STUDENTS’ LEARNING:
BALANCED SCORECARD METRICS
Table 2:
KEY AREA
MEASUREMENT
METRIC
Placement
Getting job
●
●
●
●
Employer
Quality of graduates
● Satisfaction with graduates
● Repeat visits to recruit
● New recruiters visiting campuses
Behavior
Class attendance
● % of classes attended
● Number of classes missed
Behavior
Completing assignments
● % of assignments completed correctly
Behavior
Submitting work on time
● % of assignments submitted on time
Skills
Oral communication skills
● Number of class mandatory presentations
● Frequency of class participation
Skills
Written communication skills
● Quality and quantity of short papers written
● Quality and quantity of long papers written
Skills
Willingness to learn
● Frequency of asking questions
● Quality and quantity of extra credit work undertaken
● Classroom behaviors
Skills
Working in teams
● Number of team projects
● Peer evaluations
Knowledge
Understanding of business
● Number of real-world projects undertaken
● Ability to handle ill-structured problems
● Quality of case analysis
% of graduates getting offers in their subject area
% of offers per graduate
Starting salaries of graduates
Alumni satisfaction with job
along with some mundane requirements, such as ensuring the pages are numbered and stapled. These grades
are recorded, and homework is returned during the next
class. Absolutely no late submissions are accepted. It is
amazing that students rarely miss their homework
submissions.
enforced. To understand the power of policies on
behavior, consider the impact of seat belt laws. A fear of
fines makes even reluctant people buckle up. After
some time, repeated seat belt use becomes habit. Policies and measures that make students responsible and
accountable for their actions significantly influence
their behaviors and help change habits. In my classes,
all students receive an account (bank) with three classes
(checks) that they can cash in (miss class) when needed. They all know the penalties of overdrawing—
missing more than three classes results in loss of grade.
There has been a significant drop in missed classes
since I made this policy a part of the course grade.
Assignments are another important item in learning.
Unless assignments are collected, assessed, and
returned with feedback, most students don’t bother to
make an effort to complete them. But collecting and
grading assignments for every class is a huge, timeconsuming task for faculty. I use an honor system where
students check their work and assess their grade using a
variety of factors, such as completeness and correctness,
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
I M P L E M E N TAT I O N I S S U E S
Change is difficult, and it can be detrimental to faculty
renewals and promotions. The uncertainty of success
often discourages faculty from trying new ways of teaching and assessing. Lack of experience, the fear of failure,
and the potential for reprisals practically prevents academicians from trying new ways to manage their courses.
As with any new approach, there will be implementation problems with changing course content. New pedagogy and assessment methods are difficult to enforce
without the support of administrators. Some students
feel that policies regarding attendance, homework collection, and chapter quizzes are a major pain. Students
who hate writing and open-ended questions demand
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multiple choice tests. Others are unwilling or unable to
work in teams. With appropriate policies, students will
be forced to make an effort. In most cases, the initial
resistance slowly disappears. Semester after semester, I
have seen students cutting classes early in the semester
but never missing a class after realizing they have used
up all their checks. Despite minimal weight assigned to
homework (5%), practically everyone completes it.
I am a strong believer that teachers can make a difference. In more than 30 years of teaching, I have tried
many different approaches to improve student learning.
Nothing has matched the improvement levels achieved
by applying Lean principles, a fact recognized and
acknowledge by employers. When employers ask a
graduate if he or she took my cost accounting course, it
is a reflection of the employer’s perceived value of
these students.
Though the academic environment is unique and
different from industry in many respects, the lessons
from industry help academicians in better understanding customer needs, selecting and organizing course
topics and activities, changing teaching pedagogy, and
making realistic assessments of student learning. In an
environment of escalating education costs and a highly
competitive job market, application of Lean principles
reduces costs and adds more value without requiring
huge capital outlays. Drawing on the brainpower of
individuals, Lean applications show highly significant
results in productivity, cost, and customer satisfaction. It
is time for academicians to learn from the experiences
of industry. ■
E N D N OT E S
1 American Accounting Association (AAA), Future Accounting
Education: Preparing for the Expanding Profession (The Bedford
Report), Special Report, AAA Committee on the Future Structure, Content, and Scope of Accounting Education, AAA, 1986.
2 Steve W. Albrecht and Robert J. Sack, “Accounting Education:
Charting the Course through a Perilous Future,” Accounting
Education Series, vol. 16, AAA, 2000.
3 Lakshmi Tatikonda, “Naked Truths About Accounting Curricula,” Management Accounting Quarterly, Summer 2004, pp. 62-73.
4 The Bedfort Report, 1986; Richard D. Hulme, Keith B.
Ehrenreich, and Donald F. Putnam, “Implementing the User
Approach in Accounting Courses,” The Cal Poly Pomona Journal
of Interdisciplinary Studies, Fall 1997, pp. 141-148; and Kenton
B. Walker and Penne L. Ainsworth, “Developing a Process
Approach in the Business Core Curriculum,” Issues in Accounting Education, February 2001, pp. 41-66.
5 James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, The
Machine that Changed the World, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1990; and James P. Womack and Daniel T.
Jones, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Free Press, New York, 1996, 2003.
6 Womack and Jones, 2003.
7 Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperCollins, New
York, 1993.
8 Albrecht and Sack, 2000.
9 Jeffrey K. Liker, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from
the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, McGraw-Hill, New York,
2004.
10 Accounting Education Change Commission, “Objectives of
Education for Accountants: Position and Issues Statement
Number 1,” Issues in Accounting Education, Fall 1990, pp. 307312; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; The Bedford Report, 1986; Gary
L. Sundem, Accounting Education Change Commission, Presentation to AAA Midwest Region, April 20, 1990; Lakshmi U.
Tatikonda and Rao J. Tatikonda, “Are We Teaching the Right
Stuff?” The Journal of Midwest Accounting, Spring 1987, pp. 160168; and Tatikonda, 2004.
11 Albrecht and Sack, 2000.
12 James R. Evans and William M. Lindsay, The Management and
Control of Quality, fifth ed., South Western, Cincinnati, Ohio,
2002.
13 Shahid Ansari, Janice Bell, Thomas Klammer, and Carol
Lawrence, Target Costing, Irwin McGraw-Hill, New York, 1997.
14 Evans and Lindsay, 2002.
15 Accounting Education Change Commission, 1990;
Albrecht and Sack, 2000; and Gary Siegel and James Sorensen,
“What Corporate America Wants in Entry-Level Accountants,”
Management Accounting, September 1994, pp. 26-31.
16 Tatikonda, 2004.
17 Don R. Hansen and Maryanne M. Mowen, Cost Management:
Accounting and Control, South Western, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002.
Lakshmi Tatikonda, Ph.D., CMA, CFM, CPA, is a professor of accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
She can be reached at (920) 233-8092 or
tatikond@uwosh.edu.
OT H E R S O U R C E S
Duncan Bailey and Jerome V. Bennett, “The Realistic
Model for Higher Education,” Quality Progress, November 1996, pp. 77-79.
Peter C. Brewer, “An Approach to Organizing a Management Accounting Curriculum,” Issues in Accounting
Education, May 2000, pp. 211-235.
M A N A G E M E N T A C C O U N T I N G Q U A R T E R LY
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