A Matter of Perspective in the First Accounting Courses

Abstract

This study is the first to examine how point of view impacts students’ perceptions and performance in the first accounting courses. Students were given two quizzes which contained the same questions and content except one version’s questions were phrased from the first-person perspective and the other version’s questions were phrased from the third person perspective, like popular textbooks. Analyses of matched pairs showed scores on the first-person quizzes were significantly better than scores on the third person quizzes. Results will be of interest to educators striving to enhance relevance, affect authentic interest, and improve learning outcomes in these important classes.