Teaching Professional Judgment in Accounting

In May 2005, the University of Lethbridge and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta sponsored the Banff Education Conference titled Professional Judgment: Can It Be Taught? The opening forum at the conference was a panel discussion on the topic presented by academics and practitioners. The session included an overview of the research literature on expertise as a basis for considering the nature of professional judgment and the implications of various attributes of expertise for accounting education.

Past practises and current pressures facing practitioners in exercising good judgment were addressed, including increased complexity of transactions and decreased time to assess problems. The forum also included a discussion of the need for educators to help guide students to develop an understanding of a problem rather than simply seek the answer. There was a discussion of particularly challenging topics for students to grasp in a principles-based environment. The forum culminated in a question and answer session involving the panelists and the attendees at the conference.

The research paper, Teaching Professional Judgment in Accounting, summarizes the presentations and the discussion that took place during the forum. It was prepared by Robert Correll, CPA Canada; Karim Jamal, University of Alberta - Department of Accounting, Operations & Information Systems; and Linda Robinson, University of Waterloo - School of Accounting and Finance. The paper was also published online in January, 2010 in the journal Accounting Perspectives (Vol. 6, No. 2, 2007).

Educating Professionals: Ethics and Judgment in a Changing Learning Environment

According to Gordon Beal, Vice President of the Research, Guidance & Support Department at CPA Canada: “Ethics and professional judgment are key attributes that distinguish professionals from others.” With this in mind, “The profession continues to refine the framework for the new single, unified designation and business credential and define the criteria for the qualities required to be recognized as a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA). The challenge is to effectively embed, in the fabric of every professional accountant’s decision-making process, the essential principles of ethics and foster their ability to apply professional judgment while balancing this with the task of acquiring the ever-increasing technical knowledge.”

As previously reported, CPA Canada partnered with the University of Toronto in March 2014 to create a forum for exploring best practices with respect to teaching the principles of ethics and professional judgment. As the need for these skills is common to all professions, a one-day Educating Professionals Symposium was organized which included participation of five professions: education, health care, engineering, law and accounting. Leading academics from the identified professions were asked to prepare thought papers prior to the symposium. The dialogue that ensued on the day highlighted similarities, differences and opportunities. It was the beginning of new conversations across the professions.

The Educating Professionals: Ethics and Judgment in a Changing Learning Environment project is a joint initiative between the Chartered Professional Accountants and University of Toronto. Its objective is to explore possible strategies to effectively refine the approaches to teaching ethics and professional judgment in a changing learning environment.