ABSTRACT
In recognition of the evolving body of knowledge in the accounting profession, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA 2010) highlights the importance of viewing learning as a lifelong process that requires self-awareness and extends beyond the academic setting. Metacognition, the assessment and regulation of one's own learning, is a crucial element in lifelong learning. We draw upon judgment of learning research and introduce mindset theory to explore the relationship among (1) exam performance, (2) calibration error, measured as expected minus actual exam scores, and (3) mindset, a person's basic beliefs about learning and ability (Dweck 2000, 2006) in the accounting classroom. We find strong evidence that exam performance is inversely related to calibration error (Kruger and Dunning 1999). We also find modest evidence that a growth mindset is associated with improved performance and decreased calibration error. While the mindset results were not entirely consistent with prior research in educational psychology, we explore possible reasons and future directions for accounting education research.
