*5.2. Cohesion of Topics*

A problem pertains to the complex multifaceted content presented in the curriculum, where students often ge<sup>t</sup> lost in lectures due to di fficulty relating individual knowledge pieces to the comprehensive picture [2]. To address this concern, the concept tree is displayed at the beginning of each lecture, highlighting the place of the current topic in the whole system of curriculum knowledge. During each lecture, students are inspired to use the bifurcation signposts to compare the current topic and the topics previously learned. For example, the bifurcation signpost, "industrial policy implications versus individual entity accounting requirements", indicates the di fference of scope and purpose between the two topics/twigs—capital market research and financial reporting system. In the lecture of capital market research (Topic 3), this signpost provides hints for students to further develop their understanding by referring to Topic 2:

(1) how positive accounting researchers, whose work is to discover behavioral modes of companies in response to di fferent accounting (Topic 3), play di fferent roles from corporate accountants, who prepare financial reports according to the pre-set standards (Topic 2); and

(2) how to apply the agency theory in the capital market context (Topic 3) to prevent creative accounting problems associated with financial reporting standards (Topic 2).

### *5.3. A Meaningful Learning Mode of Exam Design*

To our teaching experiences, exam questions prepared for this curriculum are easily designed on "a mode of rote learning" [21], which requires students to restate the definitions of accounting theories and concepts. The memory-test exam questions fail to assess whether students have really comprehended the theoretical knowledge and whether they are able to apply theories to practices. The concept tree can be useful to design consolidated case-based exam questions that integrate di fferent accounting models, therefore attaining "the mode of meaningful learning" [21]. This application is shown in the following sample exam questions (Box 1).

> **Box 1.** Memory-test (rote learning) questions prepared for the exam.


These exam questions simply require students to remember the textbook-based definitions and calculation formulas. The memory-test method to which the sample questions adhere is typical of rote learning and has been seriously critiqued in educational literature [1,21,22,56].

It is an attempt to redesign these questions in favor of a meaningful learning style. The first step is to establish a reference for these questions in the tree-shaped concept map, as shown in Table 6.

The bifurcation signpost, "historical cost versus anti-historical cost", indicates the fundamental di fferences between the two di fferent twigs to which the financial reporting and the alternative costs belong, respectively. Furthermore, this signpost links to the adjacently noted "in-context normative theory", which was developed on the critique of the traditional historical cost. These connections form the condition under which it is possible to design a case used to integrate the separated knowledge pieces into a consolidated body for the exam, which is shown in Box 2.

Compared to exam questions in Box 1, which require students to replicate the definitions of individual concepts or formulas of the models, the exam redesign (Box 2) inspired by the concept tree synthesizes di fferent knowledge pieces into a concrete, sophisticated, and practice-based case, which enables a more e ffective test of students' conceptual understandings and practical applications.


**Table 6.** Examined knowledge pieces in reference to the concept tree.

**Box 2.** A meaningful learning redesign of exam questions.

*On 1 January 20X5, a company purchased a machine at a cost of \$2000. It has a useful life estimated to be 8 years, and this machine has a residual value of \$400.*

*At 31 December 20X7, it was estimated that the machine could be sold for \$4000. However, if the company could provide maintenance for this machine, it would be sold for \$10,000. The maintenance fee was \$2000. If the company continued to use the machine, management estimated that it would generate net cash inflows of \$2000 each year during the remaining useful life.*
