Broad recommendations were made during the 1980s for changes in accounting education, including more emphasis on improvement in oral and written communication skills. This study sought to assess the results of using various techniques in the classroom designed to encourage and promote oral communication among and by students in the first intermediate financial accounting course. An oral communication apprehension instrument developed by McCroskey (1977) was administered as a pre-test on the first day of class and again as a post-test on the last day of class. A syllabus was designed that incorporated assignments designed to expose students to situations that could increase oral communication skills/reduce apprehension in each context.

Research Question #1: Are the levels of apprehension exhibited by the accounting students in this study comparable to measurements reported in earlier studies?

Research Question #2: Is it possible to reduce oral communication apprehension through classroom activities?

Methodology

During the second full week of class, students were assigned to a seating program whereby two people moved into a new group of four on a weekly basis. This resulted in a classroom filled with students who were reasonably well acquainted. Working in their groups, students spent some part of each class period in joint efforts to complete cases, exercises, etc., that were pre-assigned for in-class completion. Students were encouraged to engage in conversation during this time. The instructor moved from group to group acting as facilitator/referee/prompter as necessary. Students were then called on at random to present solutions to the class, a process designed to assure that each student participated at least once during the semester.

Chapter materials included debates that were also assigned to the four-student groups. Two students were expected to introduce themselves and another member of the group, giving brief background information on each, while the other two members of the group presented the group's argument(s) according to the debate assignment. A second group of students was similarly configured and took the opposing view. Students were instructed to prepare the case individually outside of class. A short time at the beginning of the class period was used to assign the various responsibilities, thus all were expected to come to class prepared to present the arguments.

The syllabus was used during both the fall and spring semesters of the academic year. Two sections were taught by the same instructor during each of those semesters. Ideally, one section would have served as a control group. However, the objective was to include as many students as possible in the experiment as well as to adhere to departmental policy stipulating the use of active learning in the classroom. Of 142 students tested at the beginning of the semester, 128 participated in the post-test.

At this university, the first intermediate class is required of all accounting majors, thus a majority of the participants in this experiment were classified as first or second semester juniors. Additionally, finance majors often enroll in the course as a means of meeting the required number of accounting hours for a degree in finance. They are more likely to be first or second semester seniors. Information was gathered with regard to communication instruction in earlier classes. It was discovered that almost every student had presented at least one independent speech, had worked in groups, and, of those who had worked in groups, all but 21 students had been called on to present results in class. One student had been enrolled in an outside communication course like Toastmasters. Across all sections, the communication backgrounds were deemed to be relatively homogeneous. It was also apparent that these business students were being exposed to many of the changes in pedagogy techniques being espoused in the education literature.

Results and Discussion

ResearcResearch Question #1: Although it was not possible to compare statistically, it appears that these accounting students exhibit levels of oral communication apprehension (OCA) that are similar to previous accounting studies. Stanga and Ladd (1990) measured sophomore accounting students at a level of 67.6 as compared to this study which measured primarily sophomore or early junior accounting students at 66.4. Ruchala and Hill (1994) measured senior students and reported a measurement of 63.0. This number is interesting in that the current study found a measurement of OCA at 63.0 for the finance majors who are likely to be senior level students, similar to the classification of the accounting students studied by Ruchala and Hill.

Research Question #2: It appears that the pedagogical techniques used for this classroom experiment were effective for the classes as a whole and for certain subsets of the classes as well. Overall, the participants were impacted favorably by the techniques used (pre-test = 65.4, post-test = 61.6), resulting in a significant difference when tested at a level of < .05. When accounting students were segregated from all participants, the reduction in OCA was also found to be significant (pre-test = 66.4, post-test = 61.5). When all participants were classified according to gender, male students reported a pre-test score of 63.6 compared to a female score of 67.3, and post-test scores of 59.5 and 63.7, respectively. Finance and other business majors, grouped together, reported a pre-test score of 63.0 and a post-test score of 61.7. However, significance was not found in these sub-group comparisons.

It seems apparent that pedagogical intervention does have an effect on oral communication apprehension. Ruchala and Hill's study involved senior accounting students and a much more intense form of intervention. The current study involved sophomore/early junior accounting students with intervention techniques taken from the current theory in pedagogy, the differences between pre-and post-tests were significant in each instance.

While no attempt should be made to read information into the measures of OCA, per se, it is interesting to note gender differences. Females exhibited a higher level of OCA initially than males (67.3 and 63.6). The reduction that occurred tended to lower the level for females only to the initial level for males (63.6 and 63.7). In addition, the apprehension level of students other than accounting majors was reduced very little (pre-test = 63.0, post-test = 61.7). This may be attributed to the fact that, because they are not accounting majors, they react only to a limited degree to pedagogical techniques used in accounting classes and involving accounting topics.

Conclusion

The emphasis in accounting education over the last decade has centered on innovative teaching techniques with the expectation that improved teaching methods will result in improvement in the quality of accounting graduates. Desired outcomes include, among other things, an increased ability to communicate both orally and in writing. Accounting faculty often find it difficult to be innovative in an environment where the amount of material to be covered exceeds the time available for its presentation. Instructor evaluations often suffer as a consequence of 'pilot testing' new techniques. In addition, there has been little evidence in the literature to show that these efforts will be rewarded with a more competent and confident entry-level accountant. While there are several limitations to this study, it appears that, in this instance at least, the effort did produce positive results.

REFERENCES

McCroskey, J. C. 1977. Oral Communication apprehension: A summary of recent theory and research. Human Communication Research 4 (Spring): 78-96.

Ruchala, L. V. and J. W. Hill. 1994. Reducing accounting students' oral communication apprehension: Empirical evidence. Journal of Accounting Education 12: 283-303.

Stanga, K. G. and R. T. Ladd. 1990. Oral communication apprehension in beginning accounting majors: An Exploratory study. Issues in Accounting Education 5 (Fall): 180-194.