The discipline of accounting is not historically associated with imagination and design (Marriott and McGuigan 2018). Nevertheless, commissioned accounting education reports have called for a shift away from rules memorization, technical acquisition, and skills development in regimented classroom environments toward an emphasis on deeper conceptual understanding (Behn et al. 2012; Black 2012). The use of visual imagery in accounting pedagogy is one way in which this shift may be realized (Marriott and McGuigan 2018).
Today's generation of accounting students has grown up with the pervasive use of visual tools to express abstract concepts (Bouillon 2005), and approximately 40 percent of college students are visual learners—preferring to be taught through pictures and other types of imagery (Clarke, Flaherty, and Yankey 2006). Some individuals are better at processing words, while others are better at processing pictures (Mayer and Massa 2003...
