An Empirical Analysis of the Positive Impact of Ethics Teaching on Accounting Students

Abstract

Recent releases from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) highlight the importance of ethics education. Academic institutions employ varying methods and place varying levels of emphasis on ethics teaching during a business/accounting degree. This paper attempts to evaluate whether teaching ethics to final year accounting students is beneficial. At the commencement of a semester, one class of 155 students was given five ethical scenarios on which to make an ethical decision. All students were then subject to three different methods of ethical instruction. Several weeks later, the class was again given the original five ethical scenarios and asked to re-complete. In all five instances, the mean responses were more ethical after the instruction methodologies. The subjects also verified that the combined effect of the methodologies had impacted positively on hypothetical ethical decision-making. Hence, it appears that ethics education is beneficial, and the challenge is to find the optimal method(s).

Keywords:

• Teaching
• ethics

Acknowledgements

The author should like to express his gratitude to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia for a grant that made this research possible.

Notes

As the survey instrument incorporated new vignettes developed for this study (p. 12) it was pilot tested on two accounting lecturers and three PhD students. All expressed satisfaction as to its relevance and only minor grammatical adjustments were made.

A full copy of the survey instrument is available from author on request.