Sink or Skim: Textbook Reading Behaviors of Introductory Accounting Students

Abstract

Despite the significant emphasis that most instructors place on textbooks in introductory accounting courses, little research exists to describe how students interact with their textbooks. Using learning journals, 172 undergraduate students provided detailed, real-time accounts of their experiences with 13 chapters of an introductory financial accounting textbook. Using the method of grounded theory, supplemented with quantitative tests of association, this study begins to characterize textbook use from a student perspective. Results indicate that, for students, reading is a motivated behavior, with the specific motives varying across different groups of students and leading to different consequential actions. Academically strong students appear to read with the primary goal of understanding assigned material, as evidenced by their willingness to (1) engage in reading before the related material is covered in class, (2) persist when material becomes difficult, and (3) establish defined action plans that promptly resolve confusion. In contrast, weaker students appear to read with the primary goal of reducing anxiety, by deferring reading and terminating it when comprehension becomes difficult. The findings of this study are used to create instructional guidance that instructors can provide to students and to direct future research by outlining important and interesting questions requiring further investigation.

U.S. accounting professors' perspectives on textbook revisions

“…This type of analysis would have implications for the advisability of expanding the availability of free textbooks in accounting. Following Phillips and Phillips (2007), further research could be conducted on how, whether, and what types of students read the textbooks that are assigned in a course. As "digital natives" enter universities in the next decade, their ways of interacting with course materials may be very different from current and past students.…”

Investigating Strategies for Pre-Class Content Learning in a Flipped Classroom

“…However, this treatment, in the flipped format, differs from the traditional classroom where reading is assigned before class and student responsibility is not enforced because the instructor lectures on the same content included in the pre-class reading (He et al 2016). In traditional non-flipped courses, students often do not read the assignment (e.g., Sikorski et al 2002;Clump et al 2004), especially weaker students (Phillips and Phillips 2007). In a flipped classroom, however, student accountability for completing the reading before class is often built in through pre-class reading assignments.…”

The effects of a virtual tutee system on academic reading engagement in a college classroom

“…However, many do not seem to apply much effort in reading course materials. They often invest an insufficient amount of time in reading and attend class without having read their textbooks (Arquette 2010;Phillips and Phillips 2007). Even among students who read their textbooks, many demonstrate a superficial level of reading by skimming the texts and using low-level reading strategies (Elias 2005;Lesley et al 2007;Taraban et al 2000).…”