How to design an accounting course that develops critical thinking
Susan Wolcott on designing courses and assignments that get accounting students to move from rule-following to critical reflection.
Most accounting students start out wanting to find the right answers. Far fewer learn what to do when there isn’t one. In this free webinar, Susan Wolcott argues that the gap can be closed by educators rather than left to chance or self-development.
Drawing on King and Kitchener’s reflective judgment model, Susan sets out how students develop from treating knowledge as a matter of fact to be looked up, through holding an opinion they can defend, to weighing evidence under genuine uncertainty and reaching a reasoned conclusion. That last stage is where employers want graduates to be, and where conventional teaching tends to leave them short.
In this practical session, Susan sets out how she designs assignments that introduce uncertainty so that students must do their own thinking; how a single rubric can be applied across cases to show students where they are and how to improve; and why crowded curricula are part of the problem. She uses ethics and sustainability as worked examples of the kind of complex, multi-stakeholder problems that resist tidy answers.
Details
Date: Tuesday, 8 September 2026
Time: 5pm (British Summer Time, UCT+1)
Duration: 60 minutes
Format: Online (Zoom)
References and further reading
King, P. M. & Kitchener, K. S. (1994) Developing reflective judgment: understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wolcott, S. K. & Lynch, C. L. (1997) ‘Critical thinking in the accounting classroom: a reflective judgment developmental process perspective’, Accounting Education: A Journal of Theory, Practice and Research, 2(1), pp. 59–78. Available at: www.wolcottlynch.com. ⚑ BUILD NOTE: pre-DOI paper; ask Susan for the exact deep link to host or link to.
Soderstrom, K. M., Soderstrom, N. S. & Wolcott, S. K. (forthcoming) ‘Embedding sustainability across the accounting curriculum’, Issues in Accounting Education. ⚑ BUILD NOTE: confirm with Susan if this is accessible before publication.
Susan K. Wolcott, PhD, CPA, CMA
Susan is an independent scholar based in Seattle. Her work centres on teaching and assessing critical thinking in accounting education, built on the reflective judgment model. She has worked with the AICPA and CPA Canada on faculty-facing materials for developing students’ professional judgment, and writes and consults on intentional course design at WolcottLynch.com.
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How to cite this article: York, T. (2026) ‘Intentional course design for critical thinking development’, Accounting Cafe. Available at: https://accountingcafe.org/2026/06/26/course-design-for-critical-thinking Retrieved: [insert date].
