Going Beyond the Numbers in Teaching Financial Accounting: The Newsletter as an Assignment Option

This paper examines the effectiveness of an innovative assessment task for undergraduate accounting students in a financial accounting course. The task required students to undertake research to identify current changes and debates within the financial accounting domain by monitoring a wide range of sources and using a newsletter format to present their findings. This task, designed to increase student engagement and interest in accounting issues and to present accounting as a dynamic, interactive social construct, is not case or jurisdiction specific and could be employed in a range of discipline and geographical contexts by educators. The implementation and review of this task within an action-research framework illustrates and reinforces the necessity of the iterations associated with action research to refine and successfully implement teaching innovations. Further, it demonstrates the significance of creativity as an effective tool for enhancing student engagement and the advantages of this assessment task for group work.