Accounting and Information Systems Department (MST) Annual Assessment Report to the College 2016-2017

Abstract

The Accounting & Information Systems department (MST) 2016-17 annual assessment report to the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics for the Office of Academic Assessment and Program Review. Entering the first year of its current two-year assessment cycle, the program assessed all six of its graduate SLOs via two different courses: ACCT 520 and ACCT 629. The two instructors of these two courses established learning goals for their class, connected their course learning goals to the program SLOs, assigned a student work project that covered 3 (ACCT 629) or 4 (ACCT 520) graduate SLOs, and assessed each student work project as “Not Acceptable,” Acceptable,” and “Above Average.” The main finding of this direct assessment include: “1. an overwhelming majority (89%) of the students appear to be doing well on their written communication skills; 2. an overwhelming majority (92%) of the students met the tax research skills; 3. 75% of the students met the program’s application skills (G-5 [while] 25% of the class did not learn to use the knowledge they gained in the course globally to solve complex tax problems; 4. conducting analytical reviews of clients’ tax returns presented the greatest challenge to students; 5. students appear to be doing well on the ethics component of the program’s learning goals; and 6. students appear to be struggling with critical thinking skills.” Faculty assessment forms are included in the report. Plans for 2017-18 include: “1. To improve students’ application skills, consideration will be given to providing mini-practice opportunities during the length of the course for the students to become more familiar with application of the complex tax rules and addressing complex and controversial tax issues. 2. To improve students’ analytical reviews of client’s tax returns, future cohorts will engage in a much more intensive compliance project. The project will involve a series of related and cumulative tax problems. Students will solve each problem and will be graded, before moving to the next one. The problems will eventually end up as parts of a complex tax return, which will be prepared as the final compliance project. 3. To improve students’ critical thinking skills, we will give a written framework in future classes of how to analyze a tax issue and determine all relevant tax consequences for all parties and refer to this as students go through problems in class.”