There are several reasons that the use of groups of teams is beneficial in upper level accounting classes. First, making students work assignments with peers prepares them for the business world where much of the work is group oriented. Second, students learn more from other students than they do from their instructors. By solving problems with other students, they gain a better understanding of the course materials. Finally, groups solve complex problems better than individuals. Groups analyze the problem more completely and reach a better solution than individuals and members of a group better understand the problem and are more committed to implementing the solution.

This is not to state that groups are a panacea for all problems encountered in the workplace and the classroom; there are problems when working as a group. First, groups are much slower than individuals at reaching decisions. If there are too many group projects, it will take away from the students' ability to work on other class assignments. Second, "social loafing" can be a problem. Social loafing is where one or more members of the group do less than their share and rely on the other members to support them by doing more work. These problems have to be considered when giving group assignments.

Considering the benefits and problems with group assignments, I wish to share with you my experiences with using group work as part of two upper level accounting courses. This is not to imply that my methods are superior to the methods used by other teachers-only that these methods work for me.

Hampton University (HU) is s historically black four-year University with an accounting program. Most of the students are traditional students; they attend HU for four years and leave with a baccalaureate in accounting. Relatively few students are employed outside of the University during the academic year. Man y of the accounting graduates are employed upon graduation by one of the "Big Five" accounting firms, investment banks, and major United States industrial companies. The students are highly motivated to maintain a high Grade Point Average to enhance their job prospects. When they enter my course, they have completed all of the lower level accounting courses. Since they took theses classes as a group, they generally know each other. The techniques described below are used in two upper level courses required of all accounting majors: Auditing and Advanced Accounting I. There are between thirty-five and fifty-five students in two sections of Auditing and one section of Advanced Accounting I. The same students are generally in both classes.

At the first meeting of the class, I go over the syllabus, which explains the assignments that can be done in a group, the rules for group work, and need for groups. I determine the maximum size of a group at the first class meeting; odd size groups of three and five are best. The students do not have to work in a group. All group members receive the same grade. The group work usually accounts for a maximum of fifty percent of the students' grade and because of the large quantity of work, sharing the burden can be beneficial.

We then do a "Meet and Greet Exercise." I ask each student to tell the class where they are from and to articulate their "business goal in life" and how they plan to achieve this goal. I then try to find commonalties among students. I ask various questions, ranging from the weather in their home town to job experiences or goals. Since the instructor is the only real outsider to the class, the tendency is to make the class less formal and to make the students feel like one unit with a common goal.

The group assignments consist of weekly homework, two or three cases, and a major research project. The homework is taken from the text and is due after the chapter is completed. As a practical matter, most groups begin rotating the work to a single member so that the whole group does not do the assignment. If the quality of the work starts to slip and the grades are lowered, students usually respond with renewed vigor.

The cases come from the "Trueblood Scholars Program" provided by Deloitte and Touche. Depending on the assumptions made by the students about the economic conditions surrounding the case, more than one answer can be defended. The cases also require the students to do research. This exercise lends itself to a group; several minds applying themselves to the case can reach a better answer than a single individual. Groups are superior to individuals for addressing complex problems and the cases encourage this kind of activity.

The research project for the auditing class requires the group to find a company that has misstated their audited financial statements. Several companies are discussed in class to provide the students with guidance. The students are encouraged to find a company that the teacher is not familiar with. Again, since the guidelines for the assignment are ill-defined, having group members to discuss the project results in better analysis.

For Advanced Accounting I, the groups have to analyze a recent Financial Accounting Pronouncement. They must discuss the old accounting standard, why that standard was inadequate to handle the economic situation, and whether the new standard addresses the deficiencies in the old standard. Again, this is a problem that lends itself to group decision making.

In general, I am generous with the grading of the group work. Any written assignment submitted with misspelled words or grammatical errors is returned to the student without a grade. The student (or group) resubmits the corrected work. Any case or research project that earns less than a "B" is returned to the students with comments and the students are requested to correct the problems and to resubmit for a better grade. Although this greatly increases the time that I spend grading writing assignments, it gives the students a better understanding of the deficiencies in their work. It also mirrors the real world where substandard work may be returned to the worker as an educational exercise.

Does this approach work? I cannot empirically prove it, but I can make several observations that lead me to believe that it works. First, many of the cases and research projects are of very high quality. They are much better than when I used to ask each student to individually do a case or a research project. Second, I can also give more assignments knowing that some of the group work will be assigned to individual members to complete. In the past, before I assigned group projects, I gave only homework and one or two major writing assignments for the whole semester. Now I assign two or more cases and a major research project. Third, I am seeing similar answers to essay test questions. By observing the students during the tests, I know they are not cheating. Instead, they are studying together, memorizing key facts likely to be on the tests and then incorporating these facts into their answers. Knowing that students learn better from each other, I feel that they are learning the course materials more completely.

There are some problems. Sometimes a student is left out of a group because I arbitrarily restrict the size of the group or because the student has few friends. Then I have to ask a group with an opening to accept a stranger. Second, sometimes one group consisting of the better students dominates the class. I try to make the group size such that there cannot be only one group of superior students and that there are at least two or more groups with "better" students. This increases competition. Finally, I sometimes have students coming to me to handle group problems. I do not intervene, and inform the student that if he/she cannot resolve the problem, he/she can leave the group. As a result, group membership does change during the semester.

Another concern is that a poorer student may have an inflated grade by joining a superior group. The group assignments make up around one-half of the course grade and the grades are generally good-"B" or better. The determining factor between superior and poorer students' grades are the individual test grades. Grades do get a little inflated, If a student does all of the work on time and makes a reasonable effort, it is hard for the student to fail.

Overall, using groups in the classroom is beneficial. It improves analysis of complex accounting and auditing cases and results in better cases and research projects. Students studying together are more successful in tests, and therefore, have a better grasp of the materials. Finally, working in groups gives the students a taste of the real world , where they will probably be spending much of their time working in groups.