The Perspective of Faculty Members of Iranian State Universities about the Influential Factors on Effectiveness of Accounting Teaching

Today, the focus on improved education quality and effectiveness in every academic area is of utmost significance, especially as a strategy to enhance the prowess of the graduates of that academic field. The reason is that it substantially impacts improving the quality and maintaining the prestige and status of that academic field. Any academic field's quality depends on the service it provides to society as its core obligation. The main task of the accounting field in a community is to offer effective and dependable financial information related to economic enterprises and deliver it to different user groups who make economic decisions based on this information. As university graduates of accounting, accountants are instantly involved in selecting the type and amount of accounting information and preparing and reporting it. The quality of accounting information relies on the quality of accountants' knowledge which, in turn, depends on the quality of education planned for them in the university. The quality of accounting education is closely connected to how accounting professors teach at universities. Consequently, accounting professors must strive to improve the quality of teaching in accounting. The purpose of the present study is to identify the factors affecting the quality level and teaching effectiveness of accounting instructors as the main factor in improving the quality and effectiveness of accounting education. This study was performed for the first time to specify and present the stimuli with a promising effect on teaching effectiveness. It was also conducted to identify and offer factors and behaviors that adversely impact teaching effectiveness. To have a thorough knowledge of these factors, suggestions made by accounting professors were willingly applied. It is hoped that such knowledge will help the professors to observe positive factors in teaching effectiveness and avoid negative factors in their teaching process. It is expected that in case the goal of this research is realized, it will help to employ an integrated, effective teaching process in the field of accounting in universities across the country, as well as to reduce possible inadequacies in the current teaching process. 

This study surveyed accounting faculty members of state universities. Therefore, research data was collected using a questionnaire with open-ended items. It included three parts, namely, "Introduction, Personal, Academic and Experimental Records for the Respondents", "Request for the introduction of effective teaching stimuli", and "Request for the introduction of behaviors that reduce the effectiveness of teaching”. In this survey, the statistical society was asked to present factors with desirable effects and/or behaviors with undesirable effects on teaching effectiveness in the accounting discipline. The content analysis method analyzed the members' proposed effective factors. 

A total of 70 accounting faculty members participated in this survey, resulting in the identification of 579 effective factors, from which 310 items deal with factors with positive effects and269 items deal with factors with undesirable effects. Given the consensus among survey participants on the effective factors, repeated factors identified were classified into 6 general classes of factors with desirable effects and 12 with undesirable factors on teaching effectiveness. From among the identified factors, factors such as the dominance of the professor on the subject being taught, the professor's interest in accounting, teaching in this field and the subject being taught, active participation of students in classroom topics and use of credible teaching resources by the latest scientific achievements, as factors with desirable effect, and lack of appropriate structural and environmental conditions, student's low interest, motivation and scientific level, the professor's insufficient dominance on the subject and their inattention and improper ethical behavior toward the student were emphasized by the subjects as factors with undesirable effects on the effectiveness of teaching. The research findings align with Sherman et al. (1987) the quest for excellence in university teaching; Young & Shaw's (1999) profiles of effective college and university teachers; Stice & Stocks (2000) on effective teaching techniques; Polk's (2006) traits of effective teachers; Gurney (2007) five factors for effective teaching; Aregbeyen (2010) Students Perceptions of Effective Teaching and effective lecturer characteristics at the university of Ibadan, Nigeria; Stout & Wygal (2010) negative behaviors that impede learning: survey findings from award-winning accounting educators; Delaney et al. (2010) students' perceptions of effective teaching in higher education; Wygal, Watty & Stout (2014) drivers of teaching effectiveness; Wygal & Stout (2015) shining a light on effective teaching best practices. This indicates the high validity of the findings of this study. Therefore, using the factors identified in this study into the teaching process of accounting professors can increase the quality and effectiveness of their teaching. 

The result of the study suggests that about the factors with desirable effects, a significant emphasis of accounting Instructors in the statistical population was on "the factors dealing with educational content and teaching tools and methods" and "factors dealing with instructor characteristics" and about undesirable effects, the significant consensus was on "structural and environmental factors", "low interest, motivation and scientific level of students", “instructor’s lack of mastery on the topic being taught”, and “instructor’s inattention or improper moral behavior toward students” as the factors influencing teaching in the accounting discipline. Hence, according to the agreement between the accounting faculty members on the factors affecting the effectiveness of teaching identified in this research, the following are suggested: To better enhance their teaching, professors active in the field of teaching accounting add to their agenda the factors with promising impacts on the effectiveness of teaching recognized in this research, implement them in practice and during training, and avoid the factors with an adverse influence on the teaching effectiveness as identified in the teaching process.