Expert System-Driven Accounting Education: A Summary of Empirical Findings on the Reduction of Professorial Control

Abstract

This chapter discusses the expert system-driven accounting education. The computer can be used as a mechanism to empower students, and thereby substitute student control for professorial control. An expert system was constructed that essentially converted test bank materials into an inexhaustible resource for structured self-study. The expert system also administered examinations, recorded grades, and provided feedback to students. The instructor, in addition to copying the materials provided by the textbook publisher in its test bank, supplemented the total number of questions with most published professional examinations. The core processing of the expert system is the randomization of the numeric values involved in the questions computations. This program represents a qualitatively unique enhancement that preserves the integrity of the original question, and allows students a similar thought sequence in the pursuit of correct responses. The randomization greatly expands the total number of questions available, converting a constrained instructor's aid into a teaching tool of immense flexibility, through the nearly instantaneous performance of thousands of computations.