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Accounting Education and Artificial Intelligence - about the project
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OVERVIEW
While the Higher Education sector grapples with regulating the use of Generative AI in classroom teaching and student work, these technologies continue to transform the landscape of other industries, particularly accounting practices. AI algorithms can accurately extract data from invoices, receipts and other financial documents, process and analyse the financial information in real-time, and interpret the data in a broad context encompassing the prevailing economic conditions, market trends and business strategies. Unsurprisingly, accountants have been called to develop AI literacy to future-proof their careers (Cooper, 2022).

As AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, higher education must embrace the change and create more meaningful student learning experiences. In Semester 1 2023, the project team (we hereafter) responded to the emergence of Generative AI technologies and platforms (most notably ChatGPT) by encouraging students to use these technologies and platforms to brainstorm their group research project in a postgraduate accounting capstone subject. We developed a Canvas (Learning Management System or LMS) module to support students in understanding how to use Generative AI tools appropriately. However, to our disappointment, only 10% of the cohort used the tool in their research, and not to any great degree of sophistication. Students voiced their fear of using it in a follow-up inquiry; a fear stemming from their limited knowledge of how it worked, lack of peer support, and apprehension regarding potential risks. This feedback revealed the need to explore in-depth how to more effectively incorporate AI literacy into the curriculum.

At a recent public forum, Ron Weber (2023) suggested that accountants should first focus on developing human intelligence in a world with AI, identifying tasks where AI would have a comparative advantage, and then seeking opportunities to work synergistically. Doing so would combine the power of AI and human creative thinking and expand the scope of accounting as a discipline. Borrowing Weber’s view, we argue that the best way to teach students AI literacy is to develop their human intelligence in various learning environments with AI, in which students appreciate the benefits of higher-order thinking skills and social skills while learning to work with machine intelligence. Such a belief underlines the design thinking of this learning and teaching initiative application. The subject involved is Integrated Accounting Studies, a postgraduate accounting capstone subject with around 100 students enrolled each semester and running in both Semester 1 and Semester 2.

Our project seeks to integrate Generative AI into the learning process, enabling students to use it as a catalyst to cultivate their higher-order thinking in their discipline and appreciate social interaction with their peers and instructors in the designed learning environments. Through the teaching interventions outlined in the following section, students will be supported to explore learning materials with their AI learning assistants, peers, and instructors. They will be guided to compare, reflect, and share new insights from the learning activities. The project has been designed to align with the key mission of the Melbourne Curriculum defined in the Advancing Students and Education Strategy, 'to develop deep disciplinary knowledge and understanding while at the same time encouraging curiosity, creativity, and inquiry’ (The University of Melbourne, 2023: 5). We hope it will enhance our students’ learning experience by providing a stimulating yet safe environment to explore, take risks, and grow, preparing them to embrace or adapt to various complex settings after graduation.

Achieving these goals has required us to be bold and innovative; not just welcoming the disruption brought by Generative AI but also creating new learning content, co-learning the technology with students, finetuning the inquiry-based learning approach, and re-designing subject assessment. Our project puts human intelligence at the centre of AI literacy, allowing students to critically analyse information, formulate precise and pertinent questions and learn to collaborate more effectively in diverse social environments. In short, it will transform education in the emergent landscape of Generative AI, forge a curriculum with rigour and quality, and advance human knowledge to benefit our society and community.

The Miro Board below captures our brainstorming and design process, and is a rich resource in-and-of-itself for you to explore. Please not that any information used or referenced herein must be credited to the authors as Spencer, S.Y., Cotronei-Baird, V., Ding, T., Lin, T., Lyle, D. Park, J., Taouk, M and Wear, A (2024) Enhancing humanistic learning for students in the emergent landscape of Generative AI. University of Melbourne LTI Project.