New AACSB standards require innovative, engaging teaching strategies and active learning methodologies to improve student learning. Concept mapping is recommended in this paper as an effective teaching and learning tool that can support these standards because it requires students to think actively about what they have learned, and allows faculty to directly assess this learning. While the effectiveness of concept mapping as a teaching and learning tool is discussed in the literature, there is little in the way of a published student guide to teach accounting faculties and students how to use the skill effectively.
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we discuss how concept mapping can help accounting educators meet the new AACSB’s standards by using this innovative teaching tool to engage students in an active learning methodology and evaluate student learning outcomes. Second, we provide a step-by-step student guide to concept mapping, based on instructional design strategy, for a typical introductory financial accounting course. While forms of business structure are used to illustrate the technique, the guide can be customized for other accounting concepts or ideas. Teaching notes are also included to assist instructors in planning and introducing concept mapping and in using the student guide.
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