Experiencing with visuals in accounting education: The case of integrated reports

Abstract

In addition to the increasing use of visual tools (e.g., maps, graphs, images) in accounting, a growing literature is advocating more research on how visuals can also act as teaching aids to facilitate accounting education. This request particularly concerns the models of corporate reporting providing a multi-dimensional representation of organizations, such as integrated reporting, due to their greater complexity in comparison to traditional accounting reports. This article addresses such request by specifically investigating the potential of using visuals to support the students' learning of integrated reports by making the multi-dimensional content of these reports more accessible to learners. To achieve this aim, the article relies on Ausubel's meaningful learning theory and focuses on the use of a specific visual, named “resource map”. This visual was particularly studied with two group workshops, whose participants were involved in developing a resource map from the information of an integrated report. Our findings show that the use of visuals such as resource maps can support the teaching of integrated reports by helping learners to understand the main principles underlying these reports and acting as an ‘advance organizer’ of the data and information describing the multi-dimensionality of organizations.