Integrating Reading Strategies Into The Accounting Curriculum

College Student Journal, March, 1999 by Robert E. Pritchard, George C. Romeo, Shirley A. B. Muller

Improving accounting students' academic performance, especially in the technical areas of accounting and associated business disciplines is a top priority in accounting education. A key, but often overlooked, skill that is essential to academic success is reading ability. In fact, reading ability has long been recognized to lie at the heart of good technical communications. Faculty members at a regional university administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test to 235 accounting students and found a statistically significant correlation between their cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) and reading comprehension and vocabulary test scores. Based on this evidence, the faculty examined reading comprehension-enhancement strategies that can be incorporated into the teaching of accounting. These procedures are described in this paper.

Many studies have emphasized the importance of communications skills within the accounting curriculum. In business and accounting journals, most literacy-based discussions have focused primarily on accounting students' written and oral communications skills. Maupin and May (1993) note, for example, that "the importance of communications skills to the successful practice of accounting has long been recognized. As long ago as 1968 the American Accounting Association (AAA) made this strong statement: `Probably no other quality is more important--to an accountant--than having the ability to communicate well both in writing and orally' (AAA, 1968)." Maupin and May further noted that in 1990 the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) decided to test for writing skills on the CPA exam.

Although developing viable oral and written communications skills for those entering the accounting profession has received attention (Rebele, 1985; Bushong, 1993), little notice has been paid to assessing reading skills which underlie effective communication. When it is recognized that reading is one aspect of the language continuum and also involves the development of speaking and writing ability, it is obvious that better business literacy cannot be fostered without serious attention to reading.

Students who read well generally show themselves to be organized thinkers who comprehend what needs to be said, connect thoughts logically, examine the importance or meaning behind things, and are more likely to demonstrate the empathy or seeing-the-other-person's-point-of-view upon which sound relationships are built. Regardless of the type of information you may be trying to compile in business, if you do not know the target group's reading ability, "Your data isn't (sic) valid." (Keller, 1991).

Recognizing the importance of reading to successful communications within the accounting profession, a group of professors at a regional state university asked students enrolled in Managerial Accounting (Principles of Accounting II), Intermediate Accounting II, and Advanced Accounting II classes to take the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT). The professors' goal was to examine the relationship between the students' overall success in college as measured by their cumulative GPAs and their reading ability. Two hundred thirty-five students (131 females and 104 males) participated in the study during spring semester 1997.

Research Design and Results

The NDRT measures reading comprehension, reading vocabulary and reading rate. It was chosen primarily because of its wide acceptability over many years of use, its recent standardization on relevant populations (high school students, and students from two-year and four-year colleges), and its minimization of gender and ethnic bias. The test scores were analyzed using Chi-square, Pearson correlation coefficients and linear regression.

The research indicates statistically significant relationships measures of students' reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, and calculated reading grade equivalent (a combined measure of reading comprehension and vocabulary) and their cumulative GPAs. The relationship between the scores on both the reading comprehension and reading vocabulary portions of the test as well as the calculated reading grade equivalent were statistically significant at the .05 level using Pearson correlation coefficients, (rcomp=.2878, rvocab=.2878, and rgrade eq=.3076). Furthermore, regression analysis indicates that reading vocabulary is the most important factor affecting cumulative GPAs. Clearly, students who have higher levels of reading comprehension and reading vocabulary have higher cumulative GPAs.

The research also indicates a fairly wide dispersion of calculated reading grade equivalents, ranging from a low of 4.1 to a high of 18.9, with a standard deviation of 3.32. Approximately 16 percent of the students in the study (38 students) had reading grade equivalents below the thirteenth grade level. It may be difficult for students functioning below this level to develop the communications skills necessary to become successful accounting professionals.

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