Assessment and Cognitive Demand in Higher Education Account i ng Textbooks

Abstract

Driven by requirements prescribed by professional bodies, the accounting curriculum in many higher education institutions in South Africa and Nigeria demands high cognitive attributes from graduates. Advancing the proposition that assessment drives learning, the authors contend that cognitive demand can be determined by analysing the assessment tasks in students' textbooks. Using a conceptual framework based on Bloom's revised taxonomy and levels of difficulty theory, this article analyses the cognitive demand of assessment tasks in selected chapters of level one Financial Accounting textbooks in South Africa and Nigeria. The findings indicate that the bulk of the assessment tasks in the selected texts are pitched within middle and lower cognitive hybrids with limited tasks at higher levels. The article offers new insights into graduate attributes, assessment tasks and cognitive demand. It also suggests an alternative approach to assessing cognitive skills, specifically within the discipline of accounting to ensure a closer fit between training and the demands of the work place.

Exploring the quality of Grade 12 accounting education textbooks

“…In both textbooks, the content is sequenced and paced in such a way as to assist the teacher with planning and teaching. This was also evident in the assessment tasks that were based on the hierarchy of knowledge and skills as they are influenced by the sequence of topics (Arek-Bawa & Dhunpath 2017). By providing in-text assessments along with the concepts under each sub-topic, both textbooks facilitated ease of comprehension (Sunday 2014;Widodo 2007).…”

“…Accounting contains many unique terms and abstract knowledge which are exclusive to the discipline. Understanding these terms and concepts is regarded as the principal skill which serves as a foundation for application and analytical and evaluation skills in each accounting topic (Arek-Bawa & Dhunpath 2017;DBE 2011;DoE 2008). Learners should be acquainted with these unique terms and concepts to communicate and solve problems within the discipline (Ngwenya 2012;Stephenson 2017).…”

“…Although there is extensive research on textbooks internationally (Bharath 2015;Liang & Cobern 2013;O'Keeffe 2011;Sunday 2014;Yang & Sianturi 2017), there is a dearth of textbook research in South Africa (Arek-Bawa & Dhunpath 2017;Bargate 2012) particularly in high school accounting textbooks. This article thus contributes to knowledge by addressing the gap in the existing literature in accounting, particularly on the quality of high school textbooks.…”

Exploring Accounting Teachers’ Views on the Quality of Accounting Prescribed Textbooks in South Africa

“…The Accounting curriculum emphasises conceptual coherence, sequence and progression of knowledge in a manner that assists the teachers with planning and teaching and to facilitate ease of comprehension (Arek-Bawa & Dhunpath, 2017;Bharath, 2015;DBE, 2011). However, in this study teachers indicated that textbooks were misleading in terms of helping teachers in structuring teaching in a logical order.…”

“…While there is substantial literature on textbooks internationally (Cho, 2017;Morales & Baker, 2018;Liang & Cobern, 2013;Lin & Yang, 2015;Sunday, 2014;Tarmana & Kuran, 2015;Yang & Sianturi 2017), few studies have been embarked on textbooks in South Africa (Arek-Bawa & Dhunpath, 2017;Bargate, 2012;Bharath, 2015;Chirwa & Naidoo, 2016). Furthermore, literature shows that there is a shortage of research on the quality of Accounting textbooks.…”