Using service-learning in graduate auditing courses: a standards-based framework

A mid-semester request for help from a local neighborhood association turned into a graduate auditing class service-learning project. Service-learning projects have the potential to provide accounting students with valuable opportunities to integrate and apply auditing, accounting, and business knowledge, to acquire new knowledge, and to practice exercising professional judgment, due professional care, and communications skills in rich settings and to provide clients with useful information. However, the use of service-learning cases in the classroom poses significant risks. Common concerns are that such cases use too much class time relative to learning achieved using more traditional methods, students might not be able to provide a satisfactory work product for the client, instructors must plan and prepare too extensively, and instructors will assign grades based primarily on subjective grading criteria. I offer a standards-based framework for incorporating service-learning projects into existing graduate auditing courses that allows educators to manage potential risks while exploiting pedagogical benefits.