Identifying and Decoding Bottlenecks in Tax

Grant recipients: Jim Barnett, School of Accounting and Finance and Julie Timmermans, Centre for Teaching Excellence

(Project timeline: January 2013 - December 2013)

Project description

As part of the re-development of our three-course undergraduate program in taxation we wanted to identify those topics that cause our students difficulty (bottlenecks) and then engage experts, our tax faculty and alumni in tax practice, to construct ways of thinking (decoding) about these topics that can be modelled for students and practiced by students to result in deep learning.

Within the Decoding the Disciplines (DtD) literature learning stumbling

Photo of Jim Barnett and Julie Timmermans

blocks are referred to as “bottlenecks.” Underlying bottlenecks are often disciplinary ways of thinking about a subject that are natural and tacit for experts, yet difficult for students. “Decoding” bottlenecks therefore involves experts “reconstruct[ing] the steps that they themselves do when solving similar problems” so that they may be modelled for students and integrated into teaching. Thus, DtD is also a methodology as it provides a clearly-delineated, seven-step process for identifying and deconstructing bottlenecks and provides guidelines for designing instructional, motivational, and assessment strategies that support deep learning of the troublesome concepts.

The results of this study have informed the re-development of the three-course undergraduate tax sequence in the School of Accounting and Finance. Identified bottlenecks and the experts’ delineation of the steps needed to overcome these obstacles have informed course re-design, including learning outcomes, and both instructional and assessment strategies. The first course in this sequence was offered in the fall of 2013.

Questions investigated

What topics in our undergraduate tax program cause students difficulty (bottlenecks)?
How do experts decode these topics?
How can the decoded bottlenecks be modeled for students and practiced by students to result in deep learning?

Findings and insights

Identifying the bottlenecks

Members of the tax faculty were asked to identify a list of possible bottlenecks that students experience based on their observations in the classroom. The result of this request was a list of 40 possible bottlenecks.

In Winter 2013 we surveyed 104 students in ACC 607, a tax course in our Master of Accounting (MAcc) program. We asked them to identify which of the 40 listed potential bottlenecks were actual bottlenecks for them and to indicate whether they thought each of the ones they selected was an important bottleneck (high, medium, low) and what their current level of understanding (high, medium, low) of this bottleneck was.

We then identified the top four bottlenecks by choosing the ones the largest number of students thought were of high importance where they had either a low or medium level of understanding. The top four are:

Being able to identify tax issues in a non-directed fact situation
Being able to research a tax issue when it requires going beyond the text
Being able to read and understand the Income Tax Act
Recognizing and understanding the implications of an acquisition of control

It is interesting to note that the first three are not technical tax topics, instead they are more skills oriented. Traditionally, we expect our students to be able to learn these skills but we have not explicitly helped them develop them. We also determined that the second bottleneck was best addressed in a course in our MAcc program and not in the undergraduate courses.

Decoding the bottlenecks

To our knowledge, engaging students, faculty and professionals to identify and decode bottlenecks represents a novel approach within the Decoding the Disciplines methodology.

Decoding -- Faculty

To begin the decoding process we asked our six tax faculty to decode the remaining three bottlenecks by identifying the detailed steps they would take to accomplish the task. We then took the steps they identified and compiled a composite document.

Decoding – Tax Professionals

Since the three bottlenecks are all professional skills that someone in tax practice would have developed, we wanted to get input on what decoding steps they take. We identified six of our alumni who are full-time tax professionals with different employers, sent this composite document to them, and asked them to edit the steps identified by faculty. In this way we were able to gather input from both academics and practitioners.

Five tax professionals responded and their input was then incorporated into the final decoding steps for each of the three bottlenecks.

Curriculum development

Of the top three bottlenecks identified, one of them, “Being able to identify tax issues in a non-directed fact situation” has been integrated into the first course (AFM 362) of our three-course undergraduate tax sequence. This course was delivered in Fall 2013 to approximately 400 AFM, Math/CA and Biotech/CA students, most of whom were in their 3A term.

In the first tax course a student’s ability “to identify tax issues in a non-directed fact situation” was developed and assessed as follows:

The decoded steps that were developed above were set out in their course material.
A “story line” was that flows through the entire course was developed. Students are given non-directed fact situations and asked to identify the tax issues. Each class included a discussion of a different part of the story line, so they could practice this skill in each class.
There were three assignments in this course and all three were non-directed fact situations for them to apply the decoding steps.
There was one question on each of the mid-term and final exams that was a non-directed fact situation for them to address.

We believe this gave students the opportunity to develop and be evaluated on their ability to learn this skill.

The next two issues, “Being able to read and understand the Income Tax Act” and “Recognizing and understanding the implications of an acquisition of control” are now being integrated into our second tax course (AFM 363) which will be offered in Spring 2014 to students in their 3B term.

Dissemination and impact

All six tax faculty were engaged in this project. They helped identify the list of potential bottlenecks and they helped decode the bottlenecks. Results have been shared with our six tax faculty. The project plan was also shared with School faculty at a lunch session on teaching and learning. The results of this project were presented at the 2013 OND conference and at the 2013 STLHE Conference. Results have been posted on the School’s web site and disseminated to alumni who are involved in tax