Making Databases Relevant in the Accounting Information Systems Course: Exercises for the Classroom

The pivotal role played by computers in acquiring, storing, and processing financial information requires that accountants, and therefore accounting students, have a thorough understanding of the underlying principles of data composition and data structures. In addition, in order to facilitate the deep learning that will sustain these students past the point-and-click mechanics of the software du jour, it is important that a pedagogical strategy such as problem-based learning be used in the classroom, especially during the early learning phases of database courses. This presentation will provide some specific examples of classroom exercises designed to incorporate the student’s current knowledge of everyday business situations with higher order concepts of data models and their impact on managerial information. The presentation will first discuss the current state of Accounting Information Systems curricular, the concepts of problem-based learning, and examples of classroom exercises to teach database concepts to accounting students. Introduction Accounting information systems of the past focused on the recording, summarizing and validating of data about business financial transactions. These functions were performed for the various groups within the organization that were concerned about the respective decisions associated with financial accounting, managerial accounting, and tax compliance issues (Hollander, Denna, & Cherrington, 1996). The need to integrate these often diverse systems led to the accountant’s appreciation of shared databases that provide a cohesive picture of the organization’s data, eliminating duplications and reducing data conflicts (Moscove, Simkin, & Bagranoff, 1999). Therefore, one important aspect of the accounting student’s learning involves a thorough understanding of database development. This has been recognized by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), which have prepared guidelines for an accounting information systems (AIS) education. These guidelines include at least one course in database management systems. However, there are only a few AIS programs in universities with AACSB-accounting accreditation (Calderon, Cheh, & Chatham, 2002), resulting in many schools having to squeeze database deve lopment concepts into a single course on information techno logy for accountants. Even for those rare students who have worked with the database features of Excel®, the typical gateway software for accountants, accounting students have traditionally been focused primarily on the challenges of placing business transactions in the proper context according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, rather than being concerned with the attributes of the data itself or for that matter, any non-financial data. The terminology of database deve lopment such as tuples, foreign keys, referential integrity, first normal form, etc. can be confusing if introduced Material published as part of these proceedings, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by Informing Science. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission from the publisher at Publisher@InformingScience.org Making Databases Relevant 1222 before the student understands desired outcomes and benefits of databases. One way to minimize this confusion is to require the student to draw upon his or her current business knowledge. By tying these experiences to the deeper underlying attributes of data, the learning process can be greatly enhanced. The goal is to provide the student with the tools to turn data into information, and information into knowledge that can support and advance the business objectives. One way to accomplish this is through problem-based learning. The usefulness of problem-based learning has been demonstrated for various Information Systems (IS) topics (Rosenbaum, 2001) and for the education of accounting professionals (Milne, 1999). Problem-based learning (PBL) has been successfully used as an instructional method for many years in the medical profession (Duffy and Cunningham, 1996). Outcome assessments reveal the value of PBL is not so much measured by the results on standardized tests but by its effect on the longer-term retention of the knowledge (Albanese and Mitchell, 1993). PBL is succinctly defined by Wilson and Cole (1996) as a method that “integrates the learning of content and skills, utilizes a collaborative environment, and emphasizes “learning to learn” by placing most of the respons ibility for learning on the learner rather than providing a sophisticated pre-designed instructional system” (p. 609). Specifically, PBL “begins with activating prior knowledge to enable students [to] understand the structure of the new information”(Grabinger, 1996, p. 674). Furthermore, in order for learning transfer to occur, “the learning context [must be] similar to the situation in which the learning is to be applied” (Grabinger, 1996, p.674). Thus the challenge for educators is to create realistic problems (Bradbard, 2001) in a context that draws upon the student’s prior knowledge in order to utilize PBL. In light of the research supporting the educational value of PBL, the goal of this paper is to offer such examples. The examples listed below draw upon the student’s current superficial knowledge of general business transactions in order to increase the student’s awareness of the ubiquity of data, not just financial data, in the organization, its importance as the basis for all bus iness decisions, and the processes necessary to insure its reliability. Although these exercises were designed for accounting students who may only receive one course in information systems, they are applicable for all non-IS majors who require an appreciation of and increased familiarity with database concepts. Stage 1: Initial Class Exercise GOAL: To view a simple business transaction from a variety of perspectives in order to capture data that can be turned into information. PBL Principle : Activate prior knowledge as foundation for new learning On the first day of class, students are introduced to the necessity of capturing various pieces of data from a single business transaction. The instructor has created mock-ups of books (fiction, non-fiction, selfhelp, reference, etc.) by folding sheets of paper into fourths and writing a title, product code and a price on the “cover”. The quantity of books (of various prices and types) created should be approximately three times the number of students in the class. (With enough time and creativity, the books can be made to look like miniatures of their real counterparts.) The books are spread out on a table in the front of the room. The class is divided in half, with one half of the students being “Buyers” and the other half being “Sellers”. The Buyers “shop” by picking up several books and taking them to a Seller. It’s the Seller’s job to write out a receipt for this transaction that he gives to the Seller who can then sit down. No further instructions are given. The instructor looks at the receipts and selects an example of very limited data captured and an example of very extensive data captured. These are projected overhead or re-constructed on the blackboard. The points regarding what pieces of data were captured and what pieces should have been captured are dis-