The power of feedback.

Researchers have used various measures as indications of "earnings quality" including persistence, accruals, smoothness, timeliness, loss avoidance, investor responsiveness, and external indicators such as restatements and SEC enforcement releases. For each measure, we discuss causes of variation in the measure as well as consequences. We reach no single conclusion on what earnings quality is because "quality" is contingent on the decision context. We also point out that the "quality" of earnings is a function of the firm's fundamental performance. The contribution of a firm's fundamental performance to its earnings quality is suggested as one area for future work.

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Understanding Earnings Quality: A Review of the Proxies, Their Determinants and Their Consequences

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=accounting_papers

This article is a review of experiments comparing the effectiveness of human tutoring, computer tutoring, and no tutoring. “No tutoring” refers to instruction that teaches the same content without tutoring. The computer tutoring systems were divided by their granularity of the user interface interaction into answer-based, step-based, and substep-based tutoring systems. Most intelligent tutoring systems have step-based or substep-based granularities of interaction, whereas most other tutoring systems (often called CAI, CBT, or CAL systems) have answer-based user interfaces. It is widely believed as the granularity of tutoring decreases, the effectiveness increases. In particular, when compared to No tutoring, the effect sizes of answer-based tutoring systems, intelligent tutoring systems, and adult human tutors are believed to be d = 0.3, 1.0, and 2.0 respectively. This review did not confirm these beliefs. Instead, it found that the effect size of human tutoring was much lower: d = 0.79. Moreover, the eff...

The Relative Effectiveness of Human Tutoring, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, and Other Tutoring Systems

The purpose of this paper is to briefly trace the evolution of DEA from the initial publication by Charnes et al. (1978b) to the current state of the art (SOA). The state of development of DEA is characterized at four points in time to provide a perspective in both directions—past and future. An evolution map is provided which illustrates DEA growth during the 17-year period, the timing of the major events, and the interconnections and influences between topics. An extensive DEA bibliography is provided.

Data envelopment analysis: The evolution of the state of the art (1978–1995)

Despite the significant emphasis that most instructors place on textbooks in introductory accounting courses, little research exists to describe how students interact with their textbooks. Using learning journals, 172 undergraduate students provided detailed, real‐time accounts of their experiences with 13 chapters of an introductory financial accounting textbook. Using the method of grounded theory, supplemented with quantitative tests of association, this study begins to characterize textbook use from a student perspective. Results indicate that, for students, reading is a motivated behavior, with the specific motives varying across different groups of students and leading to different consequential actions. Academically strong students appear to read with the primary goal of understanding assigned material, as evidenced by their willingness to (1) engage in reading before the related material is covered in class, (2) persist when material becomes difficult, and (3) establish defined action plans that p...

Sink or Skim: Textbook Reading Behaviors of Introductory Accounting Students

This study identifies conditions that affect how auditors attend to and judge the possibility of aggressive financial reporting in their client?s financial statements. An experiment was conducted with 100 audit seniors and managers to determine whether the risk of misstatement and corroboration of that risk influence attention and judgment. Results indicate that auditors devote more attention to aggressive reporting in a financial statement account when it is assessed as having a high, rather than low, risk of misstatement. Moreover, attention to potential aggressive reporting in low-risk accounts is heightened only when auditors have previously examined evidence that corroborates misstatement risk for a high-risk account. If this corroborating evidence for the high-risk account is considered after the low-risk accounts are examined, auditors are less likely to note the possibility of aggressive reporting in low-risk accounts. Follow-up analyses suggest that different cognitive processes are responsible for these behaviors. Specifically, when assessments of high risk are available to guide processing of aggressive reporting evidence, judgments appear to be based on the risk assessment more than the evidence itself. In contrast, when such assessments are not available, the amount of attention given to evidence of aggressive reporting determines auditors? judgements.

Auditor Attention to and Judgments of Aggressive Financial Reporting

This study identifies conditions that affect how auditors attend to and judge the possibility of aggressive financial reporting in their client's financial statements.1 An experiment was conducted with 100 audit seniors and managers to determine whether the risk of misstatement and corroboration of that risk influence attention and judgment. Results indicate that auditors devote more attention to aggressive reporting in a financial statement account when it is assessed as having a high, rather

This instructional case requires students to provide advice to a client who is currently a co-owner of a for-profit art gallery. The client is planning to purchase his co-owner's shares a...

Wiki Art Gallery, Inc.: A Case for Critical Thinking

In a previous study, Phillips (1998) observed that accounting students possess several dimensions of beliefs about the nature of knowledge, and provided evidence that one of the belief dimensions (i.e., that knowledge is uncertain) was related to a component of unstructured problem‐solving performance (i.e., evaluating the relevance of case facts). Phillips (1998) also proposed that the relationship between students' beliefs and unstructured problem solving was mediated by their study strategies, but did not test this proposition. The current study replicates the belief dimensions observed by Phillips (1998) and examines the empirical relationship among students' beliefs, study strategies, GPAs, and unstructured problemsolving performance. Results indicate that one dimension of beliefs (i.e., that knowledge is complex) was associated with a dimension of study strategies (i.e., consolidating knowledge) and that these two dimensions were related to cumulative GPA and, after controlling for GPA, with a compo...

Fred Phillips

Papers

Sink or Skim: Textbook Reading Behaviors of Introductory Accounting Students

Auditor Attention to and Judgments of Aggressive Financial Reporting

Auditor Attention to and Judgments of Aggressive Financial Reporting

Wiki Art Gallery, Inc.: A Case for Critical Thinking

A Research Note on Accounting Students' Epistemological Beliefs, Study Strategies, and Unstructured Problem‐Solving Performance