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Testing Accounting Students with Learning Disabilities
Bruce R. Gaumnitz, Ph.D., CPA, CMA, CIA
Professor, Department of Accounting
St. Cloud State University
Carol Bothamley Gaumnitz, Ph.D., CPA (inactive)
Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting
St. Cloud State University
Sheri L. Zalar, M.A. in Learning Disabilities
Special Education Consultant
Most accounting faculty members have received documentation from their college or university's disability services office indicating that one of their students is entitled to accommodations for disabilities. When the student doesn't have any visible disabilities, the faculty member may be surprised or confused by the request. If the faculty member inquires about the nature of the student's disability, he/she will likely be told that the information about the student's precise disabilities is confidential and may not be disclosed. This situation describes what can happen when an accounting class includes a student with learning disabilities. More than half of the students receiving services for disabilities at colleges and universities have learning disabilities. Students with learning disabilities have average or above average intelligence but have problems with processing certain types of information. While not visible, learning disabilities are real.
Usually, the requested accommodation is for additional time to take examinations, although other accommodations may also be required. (Requested accommodations should not change course standards, only the manner in which learning takes place or is assessed.) With most learning disabilities, providing additional processing time will allow these students to complete examinations. As genuinely concerned faculty members, accounting faculty may also wish to write examinations that allow the student with learning disabilities to demonstrate performance consistent with their understanding. Thoughtfully written examinations will not eliminate the need for providing the requested accommodations, but they may improve assessment of these students.
Examination Writing Strategy
When the purpose of an examination question is to assess recall of basic accounting knowledge, write the question to minimize non-accounting skills required to answer that question. By doing so, the examination's measurement of accounting achievement will be improved since it will be less confounded by other skills. A common misconception is that presenting information in a complex scenario tests higher-level analytical skills.
What to Do and Avoid
When choosing numbers for examination questions, pick small numbers. Realism is great but is not necessary on examinations. Use simple, direct sentences to provide data. Avoid run-on sentences and flowery language. Eliminate unnecessary words. Better still, present data in a tabular format. Remember, the examination is trying to measure accounting skills, not reading ability. Indicate the nature of the question in the title to the problem and/or early in the presentation. Although these ideas seem rather simple, accounting faculty may be surprised by how often they are not applied in their examinations. Three examples of an introductory financial accounting question are presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Alternate Examination Questions
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Example 1
Question IV
Abominable Enterprises Incorporated chose to acquire equipment at a cash purchase price of $17,537,804. This transaction was consummated on January 1, 2002. The equipment in question is expected to last for eight annual periods. The salvage value of the equipment at the end of its useful life is expected to be $5,537,804. For the year 2002, use the data presented in this problem for Abominable Enterprises Incorporated to compute the dollar amount of depreciation expense using the straight-line method.
Solution: ($17,537,804 - $5,537,804) / 8 = $1,500,000
| Example 2
Question Four
Abomination Corporation paid $17,000 to buy equipment on January 1, 2002. The equipment has an eight-year life. Its salvage value is $5,000. Compute depreciation expense for the year ended December 31, 2002, using the straight-line method
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Solution: ($17,000 - $5,000) / 8 = $1,500 | Example 3
4. Straight-line Depreciation
Use the data below to compute depreciation expense for 2002 for Abo Company.
| Purchase date | January 1, 2002 | | Equipment's cost | $170 | | Useful life | 8 years | | Salvage value | $50 |
Solution: ($170 - $50) / 8 = $15
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Discussion
Example 1 requires good reading comprehension, computational abilities, and accounting knowledge. While reading comprehension and computational abilities are undeniably important, if your purpose is to test accounting knowledge, it is best to do this with as few confounding effects as possible. The long "story problem" format of Example 1 does not test higher-level accounting concepts; it only requires additional processing.
Example 1 must be read through to discover what is being asked. Then it must be re-read to extract data. If the data are not presented in the order needed for the analysis, the passage may need to be serially searched again and again to find each fact necessary in order to respond correctly. This can be devastating to students with learning disabilities that reduce reading comprehension, affect short-term memory, and/or limit reading speed. In a similar vein, it can inordinately limit the performance of students whose native language is not English.
In Example 2, both the mathematical and reading skills necessary to extract the accounting question from the words have been substantially reduced. Performance on this question will be far less affected by reading, memory, and/or mathematical limitations. As such, it provides a better measure of the students' mastery of the technical accounting content it is designed to address. Needlessly complex items, such as the Roman numeral and the word "consummated" in Example 1, have been eliminated. However, like Example 1, the nature of the question is not revealed until the end of the first reading. Data search cannot begin immediately, increasing all students' processing time, even those without learning disabilities. This is unfortunate since it needlessly limits the number of questions on the examination, reducing not only potential topic coverage but also the size of the sample being used to measure students' understanding.
Example 3 allows the student immediately to begin thinking about a solution. After the title is read, the student knows what to expect. They can begin recalling the formula for straight-line depreciation and can enter data in the appropriate locations as they continue their first reading. The computations are simple, yet they are adequate to test the accounting concept being addressed. Answers need not always come out to be round numbers, like $15 in this case. That way an "odd" answer (e.g., $17.14 using a seven-year life) does not provide the student with a clue that their answer is incorrect. The data need not be presented in the order used in the computation, and extra information may also be included to test whether the student can identify the relevant facts.
The presentation of the data is also important. For example, in Example 3, the data is neatly lined up in an uncomplicated format. A blank line is placed between the introductory sentence and the data. Squint and look at the question. Does it appear neat or busy? For students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or a visual processing disorder, a question that "looks" busy or complicated can be just as troublesome as a long, involved question like Example 1.
Conclusion
When the purpose of an examination question is to measure understanding of accounting concepts, non-accounting skills required to answer that question should be minimized. If examinations are unnecessarily complex, weak performance may result from poor processing skills required to interpret and solve the "accounting" problems, not from poor understanding of the accounting concepts being tested. Choose small numbers, use simple direct sentences, and if possible, present data in tables. Indicate the requirements for each question quickly. Writing questions in this way avoids unnecessary performance-limiting consequences for students with learning disabilities. It also allows for the possibility of greater topic coverage on an examination because fewer examination minutes are consumed by data capture. This can improve assessment of all students.
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