Article review from Journal of Accounting Education

I chose to review Consideration of control environment and fraud risk: A set of instructional exercises from the Journal of Accounting Education, October 2007
The article referenced the difficulty of teaching the topic of accounting controls to students with no background in auditing and little exposure to corporate accounting. The article was instructional, directed toward giving the teacher a variety of exercises that have been proven successful in teaching students to assess risk based on a standard questionnaire.
The students are given a case study for a fictional company. The case study includes a brief description of the company and some financial and situational personnel data. Included in the materials is a “Control Environment Questionnaire” which includes “yes” and “no” answers as well as a box for additional comments. The questionnaire is designed to paint a picture of the ethical environment of the company by asking questions about the existence and adherence to a company’s code of conduct.
In addition to the case study the student is told that they are now in charge of the audit team and their job is to write a professional memo that outlines their findings and, using specific accounting guidance, come to a conclusion about the effectiveness of the control environment at that company. Completing this exercise requires that the student research and understand the purpose of the questionnaire and the accounting standards that the questionnaire is designed to address.
The article outlines the objectives for each exercise and describes what the student should be identifying in the case study and the skills that will be developed using this exercise. The article also describes the potential difficulties that the students may encounter while completing the exercise and suggests remedies and guidance that the teacher can offer.
There were four different exercises presented in the article and the authors gave assignment suggestions and options for these exercises. For example you can assign one exercise to the class or have the students complete the exercise individually or in groups.
The authors of the article performed a survey of their students to evaluate their understanding of the topic and the usefulness of the exercise. The majority of the students found the exercise was valuable in that they were able to put into practice what they had learned in the class.
These types of articles will be beneficial to me by giving me some concrete examples so I can learn how to approach difficult topics with my students using proven methods that yield positive results.