Engaging with Text: The Effectiveness of Content Literacy and Active Learning Strategies in Online Introductory Accounting Courses

Language and literacy are innate to learning. The accounting language is technical and specific, and students must become literate in the discipline to be able to critically read and understand accounting text and apply their knowledge. Introductory accounting courses are typically difficult for students, who struggle to simply pass the course. Students memorize the concepts but cannot internalize the information. Lack of active reading and literacy skills hinders higher order thinking needed to solve problems. The study discussed in this paper involves two fully online introductory accounting courses where one of the courses is taught leveraging literacy strategies (experimental course) and the other without literacy instruction (control course). Initial and final reading assessments are implemented in both courses and the results demonstrate an overall greater improvement in students’ comprehension, analysis, context and evaluation skills in the experimental class.