This fall, a faculty team comprising Professors Qing Burke, Po-Chang Chen, and Jonathan Pyzoha took part in the Howe Writing Fellows Program, a semester-long commitment in which teams of faculty members from across Miami University develop a project to use writing to encourage deep student learning of material in their specific disciplines. The accountancy faculty team focused on the use of generative AI, a tool that is increasingly used in both academia and the accounting profession.
The project culminated in a presentation on December 11, attended by accountancy faculty members as well as other program participants. The accountancy team’s presentation introduced the threshold concepts in the accountancy curriculum, highlighting three aspects:
- Accounting is a dynamic process of recording, measuring, and reporting financial and nonfinancial information.
- Central to this process is the application of professional judgments and estimates, which results in inherent ambiguity instead of rigid numbers.
- While the goal of accounting is to facilitate decision-making of stakeholders, accounting itself is influenced by the incentives of stakeholders through professional judgments and estimates.
Faculty members shared how generative AI is currently used in the accounting field to:
- increase efficiency and data reliability by automating routine tasks
- enhance financial analysis and planning based on data and trends
- improve auditing and risk assessment
- facilitate compliance and fraud detection by identifying patterns and anomalies
In summary, AI is helpful in automating routine tasks and detecting patterns and anomalies, but falls short in replacing professional judgment, especially in complex and ambiguous situations. Students (and accountants) must develop a deep understanding of business problems and learn to critically evaluate AI’s output when incorporating it in decision-making.
The team also conducted a survey of the accountancy faculty’s current usage, familiarity, and beliefs about the use of AI in the classroom. They proposed guiding principles on allowing students the judicious use of generative AI as a tool for enhancing their writing and critical thinking skills. They also provided sample syllabus language for educators to consider to guide students in the appropriate use of AI in their courses and projects.
