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Accounting History

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Submitted By rotun003
Words 551
Pages 3
Jose Dejesus

Dr. Steven Taylor

English 11 D22
3/3/2014
2nd Paper
Accounting: the need of bringing accounting history into classrooms Would introductory accounting students benefit from the lessons and experiences found in accounting history? That’s how the article “Financial Accounting Courses: An exploratory study” by Satina V. Williams and Bill N. Schwartz starts. According to studies made by Williams and Schwartz, students would better understand the political, economic and cultural issues affecting the development of accounting if they were exposed to the history and evolution of accounting through the years. They also suggested that gathering historical information in the beginning of the course of accounting may stimulate students to learn more about how accounting is actually working (Williams 198). After looking at records and seeing that many students are receive a degree without knowing the history of accounting, they conducted a survey to determine how they can get the history of accounting into the classrooms. After contacting 100 school’s accounting department administrators, they found 79 faculty members to ask for their opinions about incorporating accounting history into undergraduate introductory financial accounting classes. If they can get the majority of firms they might be able to bring accounting history into classrooms. They received 49 responses and 24 of them were in agreement with Williams and Schwartz, but their efforts to get the history of accounting into classrooms appears to be going in the wrong direction. They won’t stop until they see how far they can get in their effort to see accounting history make it into classrooms (Williams 200) One common issue for graduates of accounting programs is that they lack the conceptual and analytical skills needed for success. Accounting education has been criticized for not adequately preparing students for their future careers. The inability to think is caused by the absence of a sense of history, or an accounting culture, in classrooms (Koeppen1). “There is little doubt that the current content of professional accounting education, which has remained substantially the same over the past 50 years, is generally inadequate for the future accounting professional ... a complete reorientation of accounting education is needed” (Koeppen). One of the things that can help the students or professors is found in an article by E.
Peragallo in 1974, “Challenges facing teachers of accounting history.” He said; “many teachers of introductory accounting either lack a historical background or lack an interest in the historical development of accounting” (Peragallo 1)
According to Peragallo’s article with the program that students and professors are following there’s no room for the history of accounting (Peragallo 1).
He also said that if the program that the schools are following is changed to introduce history of accounting, they also need to restructure the program to introduce new textbooks and ways of learning to maintain the students on the right path (Peragallo2).

Work cited
Williams, Satina V., and Bill N. Schwartz. "Accounting History In Undergraduate Introductory Financial Accounting Courses: An Exploratory Study." Journal of Education for Business 77.4 (2002) 198. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014
Koeppen David R. “Creating an accounting culture in the classrooms.” accountingin. Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 17.1 n.p Web. March 3, 2014 http://www.accountingin.com/accounting-
Peragallo, E. (1974). Challenges facing teachers of accounting history. The Accounting Historian Journal, 1,2

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