Increasing the competency focus using a project-driven strategy

Accounting educators continue to look for efficient ways to introduce personal competencies into the curriculum. Prior literature contains numerous suggestions on how faculty can implement a single personal competency, such as written communication. This chapter describes our strategy for integrating a variety of personal competencies using team projects. We implement this strategy by selecting projects that are content oriented and not only involve critical thinking but also address students’ skills related to written and oral communication, technology, teamwork, and leadership. We offer guidance on how to implement this project-oriented strategy and also provide selected tools for streamlining the assessment of student performance, such as sample grading rubrics and an online survey for evaluating team leader and team member performance. Feedback suggests that students perceived an improvement in their competencies as a result of the course's activities. While we bundled a variety of personal competencies within a managerial cost accounting course, instructors can easily adapt our strategy to any course in the curriculum.