The application of the SOLO taxonomy in evaluating the level of introductory financial accounting assessments

Abstract

There is wide consensus that assessment drives student behaviour and that assessment needs to be fair. In terms of a financial accounting module pitched at NQF level 5, universities predominantly used the revised Bloom’s taxonomy to demonstrate an approximate cognitive demand level for their summative assessments. This process remains largely subjective, since the use of a verb (e.g. “apply”) to indicate a Bloom level is not particularly suited to financial accounting, where one verb may imply different levels in different contexts. This pertinent issue, together with the fact that a gap was found in the literature, leads to the primary objective of this study, i.e. to provide a framework for the application of the SOLO taxonomy in evaluating the standard of summative assessment of an introductory professional financial accounting module. As part of achieving the study’s primary and secondary research objectives, a systematic literature review was undertaken, which included contextualising summative assessment (dealing with issues such as principles of assessment and stakeholders) as well as conceptualising the application of the SOLO taxonomy as well as summarising and building on the work of other scholars. The chosen design and methodology of the study was driven by the research objectives as underpinned by an overall philosophy of pragmatism. The nature of the research objectives and data (being the financial accounting examinations) lead to a methodological choice of mixed methods research, with the qualitative research design being dominant. The qualitative design type is a document analysis specifically set in an interpretative paradigm mainly relying on the technique of thematic analysis. The quantitative part of the study utilises content analysis and basic descriptive statistics as part of the overall pragmatic approach to achieving the research objectives. The results of the study showed that the fundamental concepts of financial accounting (such as recognition, measurement, etc.) as well as the applicable topics (as driven by the intended learning outcomes and typically including assets, liabilities, income, expenses, etc.) can be used as a proxy for cognitive demand induced by the assessment tasks. The combination of these concepts and topics, together with the requirement (or lack thereof) of material relational activity or extended abstract, can then be used to set a SOLO level for the assessment task. The SOLO level of an assessment task may also be materially disrupted (or even set) by the themes of “time allowed”, “layout” or “conventional wisdom”. A framework, which includes examples of assessment tasks as evaluated through the SOLO taxonomy, is given as the final product of the research objectives being achieved.