Using Hypertext in Instructional Material: Helping Students Link Accounting Concept Knowledge to Case Applications

We studied whether instructional material that connects accounting concept discussions with sample case applications through hypertext links would enable students to better understand how concepts are to be applied to practical case situations. Results from a laboratory experiment indicated that students who learned from such hypertext‐enriched instructional material were better able to apply concepts to new accounting cases than those who learned from instructional material that contained identical content but lacked the concept‐case application hyperlinks. Results also indicated that the learning benefits of concept‐case application hyperlinks in instructional material were greater when the hyperlinks were self‐generated by the students rather than inherited from instructors, but only when students had generated appropriate links. When students generated inappropriate concept‐case application hyperlinks in the instructional material, the application of concepts to new cases was similar to that of other students who learned from the instructional material that lacked hyperlinks.