Toward The Goal Of Teaching Excellence In Accounting: Reexamining The Role Of Neutrality And Conservatism In The Development Of Pension Accounting Standards

Pension accounting is replete with complexities that present difficulties to even the most seasoned accounting practitioners.  It thus represents one of the more problematic areas of the accounting curriculum for accounting students and instructors alike.  Traditional approaches toward the teaching of pension accounting rely heavily on memorization techniques that tend to serve students’ needs on a short-term basis.  The authors present an alternative approach to instruction in which students assume the role of accounting standard setters and seek to develop pension accounting rules that favor corporate interests.  This approach allows students to recognize the economic consequences that standard setters sometimes consider in their promulgation of accounting and financial reporting rules.  The result is that students acquire a greater depth and breadth of understanding of pension accounting rules and why those rules exist as they do.  They also acquire a keener understanding of the broader standard setting process.  This logic-based approach is likely to better serve the long-term needs of our future accounting professionals.