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This study empirically tests the feasibility and effectiveness of video lectures as a form of video instruction that enables a comprehensive teaching strategy used throughout a traditional classroom course. It examines student use patterns and the videos' effects on student learning, using qualitative and nonparametric statistical analyses of survey responses and student grades. Groups of student course grades are compared with and without video lectures available.Video lectures are CD and web viewable files that present lecture materials and narrative instruction from a course's instructor. They are used as additions to classroom lectures and are not recordings of classroom lectures. In these lectures, the instructor uses Microsoft Office content files, narrative instruction, and screen writing with the keyboard and mouse pointer to deliver the lecture.Video lectures serve major strategic purposes. First, they give additional teaching time to students who cannot fully understand the course material through the classroom lectures and support materials such as the textbook. Students can view and study the instructor's lectures as often as they wish until they understand material. This study resource is particularly important in teaching a broad spectrum of students.Second, video lectures allow classroom coverage of more complex and challenging subject material that is more interesting to many students. Students who are overwhelmed by these information-packed classroom lectures have the video lectures to study, which cover both the basics and the more advanced material. Moreover, some of the time freed in classroom lectures can be converted to problem-solving lab days that focus on active learning. On these lab days, students are given complex and topic-comprehensive problems to solve. These problems aggressively challenge and move forward students' understanding and skill in working with the course material. Because video lectures are available as a support teaching resource, the labs can be used to involve students in solving problems that integrate multiple threads of a topic.Survey results indicate that many students accept and use video lectures as contemplated by this teaching strategy. The extent to which students use the videos is expected to be associated with more than the need for additional teaching time since alternative study resources are always available. Video use frequency and patterns are expected to be at least in part related to each student's learning style preferences. The paper identifies some types Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given....

This study analyzed how self-generated elaboration, instructor-assisted elaboration, and self-generated followed by instructor-assisted elaboration, affect accounting students' acquisition of procedural knowledge, intellectual skills, and their attitudes towards learning. The results indicate that the self-generated elaboration instructional strategy improves accounting students' acquisition of procedural knowledge and intellectual skills more than the instructor-assisted elaborations. However, the effects of these instructional strategies on attitudes are not significantly different. Also, our three-way ANOVA results indicate that the students who have higher GPAs and pretest scores tend to have more intellectual skills, but not necessarily more procedural knowledge or more positive learning attitudes, using the self-generated elaboration instructional strategy.

Purpose Recent literature suggests that sin firms (firms in tobacco, gambling and alcohol industries) have lower institutional ownership, fewer analysts following, higher abnormal returns and higher financial reporting quality. This study aims to investigate empirically how sin firms engage in real activities manipulation (RAM) to meet earnings benchmarks in comparison to non-sin firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine two types of RAM, namely, Cutting discretionary expenditures including research and development (R&D), SG&A and advertising to boost earnings. Extending deep discount or lenient credit terms to boost sales and/or overproducing to decrease COGS to increase gross profit. Consistent with Roychowdhury (2006), the authors use abnormal discretionary expenditures as the proxy for expenditure reduction manipulation and abnormal production costs as the proxy for COGS manipulation. Findings The results for the abnormal discretionary expense model suggest that sin firms do not engage in RAM of advertising, R&D, SG&A expense to just meet earnings benchmarks. The results for the production costs model suggest that sin firms do not engage in COGS manipulation to just meet earnings benchmarks. The results are robust after controlling accrual-based earnings management (AEM). Overall, in this setting, these results suggest that managers of sin firms engage less in RAM to meet earnings benchmarks. Originality/value The findings are of interest to investors, auditors, regulators and academics with respect to financial statement analysis and earnings quality.