Integrating Cryptocurrency into Intermediate Financial Accounting Curriculum: A Case Study

Abstract

As the accounting profession is rapidly changing, faculty members are challenged with the task of incorporating emerging advances into the accounting curriculum in order to equip students for future success. There is little debate that cryptocurrency is prominent in the business world today, thus prompting attention for accounting professionals and educators is important. In this paper, we document our experiences in introducing cryptocurrencies to undergraduate financial accounting students with the goal of capturing their knowledge and measuring their perceptions of the impact digital currency holds in the current economic environment. To operationalize our research question, students were given a cryptocurrency assignment to complete outside of class and were asked a series of questions in the class period directly after the assignment was due. The results of our case study show that students became more aware of cryptocurrencies and accounting practices associated with them after their completion of this assignment and the vast majority of students found this knowledge would benefit them in their future careers.