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Reducing Written Communication Apprehension for Students in Tax Classes

Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations

ISBN: 978-1-78743-344-1, eISBN: 978-1-78743-343-4

Publication date: 29 August 2017

Abstract

Both accounting professionals and accounting academics have noted the importance of communication skills for the career success of students. Further, the general consensus from the academic and practitioner literature is that these communication skills are an area in which many students could use improvement. One factor that has been shown to impact the improvement and development of these skills is communication apprehension.

In this chapter, we describe a combination of pedagogical methods we employed in tax classes at two universities to reduce written communication apprehension among students. More specifically, we draw ideas from communications research which suggest that increased writing opportunities, progressively increasing the weighting of the assignments, using models and examples for study and comparison, and trying to make feedback more effective may help to reduce written communication apprehension. We implemented this suggested approach by using a series of assignments that incorporated writing components.

Results suggest that writing apprehension reduced from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester. Further, the reduction in writing apprehension was even greater for those students who began the semester with high written communication apprehension. In addition, the results of the survey questions at the end of the semester suggest that the methods also improved students’ confidence in preparing tax-related written communication.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants of the Northeast Region of the American Accounting Association, the two anonymous reviewers, and coeditor Beth Kern for helpful comments.

Citation

Noga, T. and Rupert, T. (2017), "Reducing Written Communication Apprehension for Students in Tax Classes", Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations (Advances in Accounting Education, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 57-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1085-462220170000021003

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited