Title: Accounting education in developing countries: can accounting expert systems be an alternative/support solution to instructor-based teaching?

Authors: Helmi Hammami, Hassouna Fedhila

Addresses: College of Business & Economics, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar. ' Institut Superieur de Comptabilite et d'Administration des Entreprises, Campus Universitaire de La Manouba, 2010, Tunisia

Abstract: Accounting teaching in developing countries is facing serious challenges due to the increasing number of students. Accounting expert systems as a teaching method can help manage this flow. The objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of expert systems as a teaching method compared to regular professor-based teaching. Knowledge acquisition was tested over two dimensions: a) declarative knowledge; b) procedural knowledge. Findings show that the expert system teaching method was as effective as the professor-based teaching method in reference to declarative knowledge, but it gave better results for procedural knowledge. We conclude that accounting expert systems can be considered an effective support in making knowledge available to students in developing countries, especially in poor ones.

Keywords: expert systems; accounting education; developing countries; procedural knowledge; declarative knowledge; knowledge acquisition.

DOI: 10.1504/AAJFA.2009.028914

Afro-Asian Journal of Finance and Accounting, 2009 Vol.1 No.4, pp.353 - 366

Published online: 11 Oct 2009 *

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