Developing deep approaches to learning is claimed to enhance students' engagement with their subject material and result in improved analytical and conceptual thinking skills. Numerous calls have been made for accounting educators to adopt strategies that produce such results. This paper reports on changes to the learning environment centring on the introduction of group learning activities that were designed to improve the quality of students' learning outcomes. The impact of changes in the learning environment on students' approaches to learning, as measured by the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) (Biggs, 1987b), was then assessed. Results indicate that across the semester, accounting students exhibited a small but statistically significant increase in their deep learning approach, and a small but statistically significant reduction in their surface learning approach. The results suggest that accounting educators, through changes in the learning environment, may be able to influence the learning approaches adopted by accounting students.

This article examines earnings management, as well as the presentational format of graphs (impression management) in the financial reports of sixtythree Australian listed public companies that changed chief executive officers (CEOs). Prior U.S. evidence generally suggests downward earnings management in the year of senior management changes and upward earnings management in the following year (Pourciau, 1993). We argue that new managers not only have incentives to manage earnings but also have similar incentives to manipulate the impressions created by graphs in financial reports. Examining earnings and impression management at the same time also provides an opportunity to distinguish between alternative explanations for any observed earnings management. In the year of CEO change, we hypothesize and find evidence of downward earnings management and some limited evidence of unfavourable impression management of the key financial variables (KFVs) graphed. As posited, we find evidence of upward earnings management and some evidence of favourable impression management in the year after a CEO change. These results are strongest for the subsample in which the CEO change was prompted by a resignation rather than a retirement.

Measurement error in unexpected accruals is an important problem for empirical earnings management research. Several recent studies avoid this problem by examining the pooled, cross-sectional distribution of reported earnings. Discontinuities in the distribution of reported earnings around key earnings thresholds may indicate the exercise of management discretion (i.e. earnings management). We apply this approach to the detection of earnings management by Australian firms. Our results generally indicate significantly more small earnings increases and small profits than expected and conversely, considerably fewer small earnings decreases and small losses than expected. These results are much stronger for larger Australian firms. We undertake an exploratory analysis of alternative explanations for our results and find some evidence consistent with management signalling its inside knowledge about the firm's expected future profitability to smooth earnings, as opposed to 'management intent to deceive' as an explanation for our results.

Effective communication of information using graphs depends on the graphs being constructed so that they faithfully represent the underlying data. If certain principles of graphic construction are violated, graphs will be distorted and may mislead users of financial statements. The paper develops and tests hypotheses concerning the relationship between the use and construction of graphs in the annual reports of companies and the performance of those companies.