Accounting Education: A Cognitive Theory Load Theory Perspective

Abstract

This book provides a comprehensive and authoritative source of reference for students and instructors on designing instructional material in the area of accounting and business. A critical overview of poor design where students are required to split their attention between several sources of information found in textbooks and other documents is provided. The book illustrates how learners need to mentally integrate two or more distinct items of information, placing unnecessary demands on cognitive load. Cognitive Load in Accounting discusses cognitive load theory which assumes that the task of mental integration increases the load on already limited working memory, and it does so to such an extent that learning may be severely impeded. Experiments presented in this book investigate how students could deal with cognitive overload when learning introductory accounting using three instructional design formats, the split-attention format, the integrated format, and the self-managed format. The results of these experiments established the presence of the split-attention effect in accounting. A strong transfer effect when students self-manage instructions is also discussed.