Fostering critical thinking in first-year accounting students : insights from a semester-long intervention

Abstract

There have been demands in recent years for a focused inclusion of critical thinking in the accounting curriculum to enhance accounting students’ critical thinking skills. This has placed the onus on accounting educators to actively explore ways in which accounting courses should be (re)designed to achieve this goal. This exploratory study employed a pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental design over two research cycles (2023 and 2024) to determine whether embedding explicit critical thinking instruction within a first-year course in an accounting degree could support students’ development of critical thinking skills. The researchers firstly designed and implemented a one-semester critical thinking intervention aimed at enhancing students’ critical thinking. Secondly, the researchers made use of the Abstract Reasoning Test (ART) and Critical Reasoning Test (CRT) to measure participants’ abstract reasoning abilities and their verbal and numerical critical reasoning abilities before and after participation in this intervention. Results reveal a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) between the pre-test and post-test scores of participants in both the ART and CRT assessments during both research cycles. These findings demonstrate that a one-semester critical thinking intervention, incorporating explicit critical thinking pedagogies and activities within the accounting curriculum, can provide support for the development of accounting students’ critical thinking skills.