Teaching Basic Accounting To Engineering Economy Students: Are Computer Tutorials More Effective Than Traditional Classroom Lectures?

Many colleges and universities are making an effort to incorporate computers and technology into their teaching environments and grappling with the effectiveness of using such technologies. This article addresses the effectiveness of using a computer –based tutorial as a method of learning versus traditional lecturing. This paper is based on a study that compared student’s test scores using computer mediated accounting tutorials alone with those of students who received traditional lectures and computer mediated tutorials in the same topic. The students sampled were junior and senior undergraduate engineering students taking a required Engineering Economics core course that contained computer tutorials for basic accounting. Based on previous research (Merino, 1989 and McNaught 1995) it was anticipated that both methods would be satisfactory instructional tools and yield similar educational results. The results of the research indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the two methods. This study concludes that computer based tutorials could be substituted for traditional lectures without impacting what a student learnsat least for teaching accounting fundamentals. For both groups, a major improvement in learning occurred as evidenced by the final mean scores.