J. of Acc. Ed. 26 (2008) 104–117

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J. of Acc. Ed.

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Main article

Experiences in publishing peer-reviewed researchwith undergraduate accounting and finance students

Terrance Jalbert *

University of Hawaii at Hilo, 200 West Kawili Street, Hilo, HI 96720, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:Undergraduate researchPublishing with students

Academic qualifications

0748-5751/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Ltdoi:10.1016/j.jaccedu.2008.08.003

* Tel.: +1 808 974 7456.E-mail address: jalbert@hawaii.edu

a b s t r a c t

This paper describes an educational program involving jointresearch projects undertaken between faculty and undergraduateaccounting and finance students. The goal of the program was toprovide undergraduate accounting and finance students a valuableeducational experience resulting in a joint peer-reviewed journalpublication. The paper discusses issues, concerns, and strategiesthat were successfully and unsuccessfully employed in conductingand publishing research with undergraduate students. The pro-gram was conducted over a six-year period, resulting in ten publi-cations in peer-reviewed journals as well as several conferencepresentations, proceedings, and awards. Administrators shouldconsider the program described here as one tool in their arsenalto help faculty maintain academic qualifications while simulta-neously benefiting students.

� 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The need for faculty to balance their teaching and research work loads is well documented. The bal-ancing act can be difficult for individuals at smaller schools with heavy teaching loads and little sup-port in the way of research assistance or funding. Moreover, the demand for faculty to remainacademically qualified for accreditation purposes is ongoing. One way to increase faculty research out-put, maintain academic qualifications, and improve student learning and satisfaction is to combine re-search and teaching efforts. Undergraduate research can be a win–win situation where students gainvaluable research experience and faculty achieve the intellectual contributions necessary to maintaintheir academic qualifications. Administrators might suggest such a program to faculty, particularly

d. All rights reserved.

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those who enjoy engaging students but have difficulty conducting the research necessary to maintainacademic qualifications.

Research with undergraduate students is receiving increased attention at universities throughoutthe country (Elgren, 2006; Strassburger, 1995). Indeed, Higgins (2006) refers to the trend in under-graduate research as a phenomenon. Moreover, the National Science Foundation has identified under-graduate research as a critical component of its strategy for education reform (National ScienceFoundation, 2000). Further attesting to the importance of undergraduate research is the observationthat US News and World Report publishes a ranking of universities based on undergraduate researchand creative expression (US News, 2008).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, theUniversity of Washington, Emory University and the University of Illinois all have established and cel-ebrated undergraduate research programs (Merkel, 2003). Others institutions with known undergrad-uate research programs include the University of Wisconsin Madison (University of WisconsinWebsite, 2007), Metropolitan State College of Denver (Howerton, 1991), Baldwin-Wallace College,Bradley University, and The University of Pittsburgh. Zydney, Bennett, Shahid, and Bauer (2002a) re-port that 90% of 344 management, science, and engineering faculty surveyed at the University of Del-aware engage in research with undergraduate students. Indeed, many universities employ directors ofundergraduate research to coordinate these activities.

The primary organization involved with supporting undergraduate research is the Council onUndergraduate Research. Founded in 1979, this organization’s mission is to support and promotehigh-quality undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship (Council on Under-graduate Research, 2007). The Council undertakes a variety of activities including holding an annualconference and providing awards for outstanding teaching.

This paper extends the literature by discussing how conducting research with undergraduateaccounting and finance students can be successfully combined with a faculty member’s teachingresponsibilities. The paper discusses program implementation and lessons learned. The goal of theprogram was to provide undergraduate accounting and finance students a valuable educational expe-rience resulting in co-authored journal publications. This approach is suggested by a number ofauthors in the literature, including Godoy and Valeiras (2001), and Greendyke (2002).

The research efforts described in this article involved approximately 20 students, over a period ofsix-years. Projects conducted as part of this program range from case studies to empirical financial pa-pers. While some efforts have not been successful in producing a peer-reviewed journal article, themajority have been successful, particularly those that were undertaken as the program matured.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses the relevant litera-ture. The following section discusses how students were selected for the program, administrative is-sues, and how the projects were identified and completed. Next, responsibilities of the professor,assessment, and university support are discussed. The article closes with a discussion of lessonslearned and some concluding comments.

2. Literature review

This section begins with a brief discussion of some of the potential benefits associated with under-graduate research. Motivations of faculty to engage in undergraduate research and the literature re-lated to best practices in undergraduate research are then discussed. No known research inaccounting or finance addresses the issue of conducting research with undergraduate students. It isnot clear if the lack of research in the accounting and finance areas is because few professors in theseareas engage in undergraduate research, or if they are engaging in such research, but have not pub-lished articles on their experiences. Thus, the program described in this article is related to the generalliterature on undergraduate research and to the literature from other academic areas.

Merkel (2003) argues that undergraduate research programs are a positive response to media crit-icism that universities emphasize research to the detriment of teaching. Undergraduate research pro-grams can also help address retention problems. The University of Michigan finds increased retentionamong students who engage in research projects during the first year of college (Nagda, Gregerman,

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Jonides, von Hippel, & Lerner, 1998). Hathaway, Nagda, and Gregerman (2002) surveyed 291 individ-uals who attended graduate school. They find that undergraduate students who participate in researchare more likely to pursue graduate degrees. Mickley, Kenmuir, and Remmers-Roeber (2003) discussconducting research with undergraduate students in a neuroscience program. They report that 90%of students who participate in their program go on for postgraduate training or start a career inscience.

The above studies are subject to pre-selection bias criticisms, but nevertheless provide a degree ofpositive evidence on the benefits of undergraduate research programs. Joslin, Lumala, Riggs, andSazawal (2005) contend that students from teaching-oriented universities are disadvantaged relativeto students from research oriented schools when applying for postgraduate programs. Sandnes, Jian,and Huang (2006) argue that undergraduate research programs can help resolve this disparity.

Seymore, Hunter, Laursen, and Deantoni (SHLD) (2004) provide an extensive review of literature onthe benefits that students realize from an undergraduate research experience. The literature indicatesthat benefits include: increased student interest in the discipline, enhanced career preparation, clar-ification of career path, increased skills, improved critical thinking, improved understanding of the re-search process, increased self-confidence in ability to do research, and becoming part of a learningcommunity. Lopatto (2004) surveyed 1135 participants in undergraduate research programs from41 higher education institutions. He identified several additional benefits including: improved oralpresentation and writing skills, learning ethical conduct, learning to work independently, improvedtolerance for obstacles, and improved ability to analyze data.

Zydney, Bennett, Shahid, and Bauer (2002b) found that 92.4 percent of alumni from an engineeringprogram at the University of Delaware thought that the undergraduate research program they partic-ipated in was ‘‘important” or ‘‘extremely important” to their overall education. They find that alumniwith research experience were more likely to pursue graduate degrees, reported greater ability to car-ry out research, understand scientific findings, know literature of merit in the field, analyze literaturecritically, and possess clearer career goals than alumni with no research experience. Utilizing alumniperceptions, Bauer and Bennett (2003) also found significant educational gains associated with under-graduate research. Based on these findings, universities have a great deal to gain from actively sup-porting undergraduate research programs. However, the extent to which these findings can begeneralized to other disciplines, including accounting, finance, and business in general remains anopen question.

Given the promise of significant benefits from undergraduate research programs, it is important toidentify issues that motivate faculty to engage in these activities. Merkel (2003) notes that faculty gen-erally view undergraduate research projects as a part of their teaching load as opposed to part of theirresearch work. Moreover, Finkelstein (1995) finds faculty prefer research over teaching. To the extentthat this is true, faculty may be engaging in risky behavior by undertaking research with undergrad-uate students. Specifically, they are investing their time in an activity that may not confer the maxi-mum benefits to them.

Fiarweather (2005) examined research and teaching as determinants of faculty salaries. He found anegative relationship between the number of hours spent in the classroom per week and faculty pay,and a strong positive relationship between total refereed publications and faculty pay. Fairweatheralso found diminishing negative returns for hours spent in the classroom each week and diminishingpositive returns for publishing. These findings all provide a strong financial motivation for faculty toreduce their teaching activities and increase research activities. To the extent that administrators canencourage faculty members to combine their teaching and research activities, the motivation to re-duce teaching activity might be reduced.

Colbeck (1998) notes that the extent to which faculty roles are rigorously defined may impact theopportunities available to integrate teaching and research. She argues that when faculty roles are rig-idly defined, faculty may have fewer opportunities to integrate teaching and research. Colbeck furtherargues that faculty in hard disciplines (defined as disciplines where knowledge is perceived as cumu-lative) are likely to have fewer opportunities to integrate teaching and research than faculty in softdisciplines.

Healey (2005) argues that the relationship between teaching and research is complex and depen-dent on how research, teaching, and learning are conceptualized. Following the work of Boyer (1990),

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he suggests the adoption of broader definitions of research than are currently commonplace in theUnited Kingdom. Healey suggests that undergraduate students are likely to gain the most benefit fromresearch when they are actively involved in the process, particularly through inquiry-based learning.Such an approach by universities might change the perception of faculty that undergraduate researchis a teaching activity, as discussed by Merkel (2003), and allow faculty to more closely align their goalswith those of the university.

Zydney et al. (2002a) surveyed faculty at the University of Delaware. They found that a desire toinfluence the careers of talented students was a primary motivator for faculty to participate in under-graduate research. They also found that the time required to undertake undergraduate research wasthe most important barrier to faculty participation. Financial cost was also noted as an important bar-rier to conducting research with undergraduate students.

Most existing research addresses the payoffs of research activity (Lopatto, 2006), but many otherissues are present. A relatively small body of research has examined issues associated with imple-menting and identifying best practices associated with undergraduate research programs. In an inter-esting paper, Guilford (2003) discusses a program of teaching students the peer review process. Theprogram involved writing a term paper in a cell and molecular biology course at the University of Vir-ginia. The program involves students anonymously reviewing other student papers, with the professornot actively engaging in the research projects. Howerton (1991) describes several research projectsconducted in the computer science area of an undergraduate university. He discusses the process,methods used to compensate faculty, and methods used to engage students in the research program.Howerton also discusses issues associated with compensating the students for their time, or offeringscholarships for directed studies. Sandnes et al. (2006) also examined methods of compensating stu-dents for participating in a research program.

This research extends the literature that examines issues and best practices of implementing anundergraduate research program. This research is the only known research to examine conducingundergraduate research with accounting and finance students.

3. Conducting research with undergraduate students

This section describes how the undergraduate research program was implemented. Included arediscussions of how students were selected, prescreening and interviewing students, administrative is-sues, selecting projects, and bringing projects to completion.

3.1. Selecting the students

The research program described here was not formally advertised by the university. Rather, selectundergraduate students were invited to participate in the program in a manner similar to that sug-gested by Sandnes et al. (2006). Numerous screens were employed in the process of selecting studentsfor the program. The goal was to identify students who had the ability, time, interest, and willingnessto complete a research project. Undergraduate students tend to be very motivated by the prospect ofachieving a peer-reviewed publication and as such are generally quite willing to entertain the possi-bility of engaging in the research project. However, their willingness and ability to follow through arefar less certain.

The next two sections describe the methods that were used to screen and interview students forthe program. Screening followed a two stage approach. The pre-screening stage was done withoutthe student’s knowledge and was based primarily on classroom observation. Candidate students iden-tified in stage one were invited for a personal interview to conduct additional screening.

3.1.1. Pre-screeningParticipation in the program was limited to students who had previously taken a course from the

author of this article. Due to the nature of the university program, this screen effectively placed a pre-requisite of the upper-division introductory finance class on the program. While taking a regularcourse, student attitudes and performance were observed over a period of time. In addition, academic

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advising encounters were used as an additional opportunity to assess the quality of students. Class-room observation facilitated the elimination of unmotivated students and students who would be dif-ficult to work with. Students with some interest in accounting, finance, or to a lesser degree economicswere considered for the program. It was not possible to more precisely categorize the students as theuniversity does not offer majors or specializations within the business program.

The first screen was for a quality academic individual. As only one or two students were selectedfor the program each semester, the professor elected to work exclusively with students who were at ahigh academic level. It is acknowledged that other students may also be candidates for undergraduateresearch programs. Indeed, Kinkead (2003) suggests three candidate student types for participation inresearch projects: honors students, at risk students and prospective teachers. Nevertheless, the pro-gram here was limited to high-quality students.

A second related screen was for students who could accept direction. Some students simply cannotaccept criticism or direction, and as such become difficult to work with. To a certain degree, professorsbecome aware of various student attitudes from regular class work. Students who could not acceptdirection were eliminated from further consideration. In one instance, a student who could ultimatelynot accept direction was accepted. The project was not successful. While the student did produce apaper, the professor believed that the paper had little chance for publication and thus did not followthrough with the project.

A third screen was for a student with creativity and independence. Some quality students excel atmemorizing classroom materials and techniques, and reproducing the results on an exam. On occa-sion, these quality classroom students do not have the creative ability to develop an idea on theirown or to work independently. These students expect to be told exactly what to do, and will completethe assigned work as directed. Research projects generally require the student to take initiative, dem-onstrate creativity, and work independently. As such, students with at least some demonstrated levelof creativity and independence were sought for the program.

The final pre-screen was based on the academic level of the student. The ideal student was viewedas being midway through their junior year, or early in their senior year at the time the project wasundertaken. Younger students have not had sufficient training in business to complete the project suc-cessfully. Students in the last-semester of their senior year tend to be preoccupied with completinggraduation requirements and searching for a job. It is also difficult to extend the research beyondthe semester in question if the student has left campus, further limiting the desirability of workingwith last-semester seniors.

3.1.2. The interviewAfter several candidates were identified using the above criteria, students were engaged in one-on-

one conversations to complete additional screening. These interviews were held in early Novemberand late March, just prior to pre-registration for the following semester. The first interview screenwas to ascertain the student’s interest in working on a project. If the student expressed initial interest,the interview continued by inquiring about the time commitments of the student. This screen was toensure that the student had sufficient time available to work on the project. This item can be a sub-stantial sticking point. While many capable students have the motivation to complete a project, somesimply do not have the time to undertake the work. Items that have been noted to interfere with theproject are excessive class load, participation on athletic teams, work outside of school, family respon-sibilities, and other commitments. An excess of outside commitments along any of these lines candoom the project. Optimal students were considered to be those taking twelve to fifteen credit hours,without extensive family commitments and without other work commitments. A student is rarelyoptimal in every category, and thus some deviations from the optimal student were expected.

The conversation continued by determining if the student would be able to utilize the course tomeet the requirements of their major. The directed study program offers three upper-division directedstudy business credits. The three credits can be used to satisfy part of a fifteen credit hour, upper-divi-sion business elective requirement. This screen ensured that the course would help the student com-plete his or her graduation requirements. Ensuring that the student needed the credits reduced therisk of the student dropping the course midway through the semester. In one instance, two studentswho did not require the credits were invited to participate in a project. Both students initially agreed

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to participate in the project, but both later withdrew because of more pressing obligations. The inter-view frequently included a discussion of the project to be undertaken, a topic that is discussed fullylater in the paper.

Students generally wish to take a certain amount of time to consider the proposal. Professors con-sidering such a program are cautioned to avoid having multiple inquiries open simultaneously as mul-tiple acceptances can overburden the professor and doom all of the projects.

Once a student is selected for a project it is critical to obtain the permanent address of the student.Obtaining the addresses of parents and other family members is also useful. Students move frequently,and may finish school and relocate between the time the paper is completed and then published. Insome instances, it is simply no longer possible to obtain the student’s address. If a student cannotbe located to sign consent forms, a publication opportunity can be missed and a great deal of effortwasted. It is important to obtain this information at the outset as this is an important task that canbe easily forgotten.

3.2. Administrative issues

The combination of research and teaching discussed in this paper was conducted under the aus-pices of directed study. As noted earlier, students earned three directed study credits for participatingin the program. In order for the student to register for the directed study course, the student and pro-fessor were required to submit a form outlining the course proposal to the department chair for ap-proval. The form included a brief description of the course of study to be undertaken and how thework was to be graded. A sample course proposal follows:

This project will be to write a paper analyzing the desirability of tax-deferral in a changing tax ratestructure. Many people defer current taxes by opening IRAs, 401Ks, and other tax advantagedaccounts. The desirability of these accounts is that individuals can reduce current taxes and gainthe benefit of tax-deferred growth. In an environment of significant federal budget deficits, taxrates can be expected to increase in the future. The desirability of deferring current income intothe future, when higher tax rates might prevail, is questionable. In this paper, we will explorethe desirability of deferring current income when future tax rates are expected to change. Thepaper should be well prepared and suitable for publication in an academic journal. The papershould be a minimum of 20 pages in length. The paper will be revisable based on the commentsof the instructor. The student will be graded as follows:

Literature review 20%

Development of the paper and recommendations 50%Quality of write-up 30%

The course was assigned an alpha of Fin 399V for students classified as juniors and Fin 499V forstudents classified as seniors. Students paid tuition for the course at the regular university rate. Thesetuition rates were approximately $147 per credit hour for residents and $461 per credit hour for non-residents. There was no syllabus for the course beyond the above agreement. Grades were assigned atthe end of the course based on the instructor’s evaluation of the student’s performance.

While some research projects extended beyond the semester, grades were always assigned at theend of the semester. In order to avoid assigning a grade for a project that has not been completed, pro-fessors might assign the credits over two semesters allowing for two grading opportunities. Yet an-other alternative would be for professors to assign an incomplete grade until the final project iscompleted. Teaching evaluations were not conducted for the course. Students were not given a re-search area, such as a desk or office, to compete their work.

3.3. Selecting the project

The project was selected in conjunction with the student. This element was frequently done as partof the interview process described above. The project can be identified utilizing one of at least four

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methods: (1) the student suggests the project, (2) the professor identifies a project, (3) extension of apreviously-completed project, and (4) identify the project as part of the research program. Each ofthese four methods is discussed below.

On several occasions, the student suggested a project. The suggestions occurred from office visitsand from observations that occurred in class. On one occasion when discussing market efficiency inan investments class, a student argued that identical stocks frequently trade at different prices onthe US and Stockholm stock exchanges offering the possibility of arbitrage profits. Several conversa-tions between the professor and student turned the idea into a joint research project that was ulti-mately published.

The most common method of identifying the project was for the professor to provide the impetusfor the project at the outset. A list of candidate projects that could be completed with students wascontinuously maintained. Each of these candidate projects was discussed with the student, and thestudent was allowed to select from among these projects. The advantage of this method is that thestudent can start on the project at the outset of the semester and can see the project build from con-cept to journal publication. The student benefits from the professor’s experience regarding the types ofprojects that are publishable.

On one occasion, an extension of an earlier student/professor paper that had been published wassuggested. The advantage of this method is that the student had some preliminary work to begin from,thereby allowing the student to move the paper to a more advanced level and closer to completion.The resulting publication listed both the student from the first paper as well as the student fromthe second paper as authors. Thus, the student from the first paper achieved two publications.

On two occasions, a second professor from a different university was invited to participate in a stu-dent project. In one of these instances, upon completion of the initial paper, this second professor sug-gested a follow-up study. This follow-up study, also including the original student as an author, wascompleted and published. Again the student achieved two publications.

A final approach that was utilized was to identify a project with a student as part of the researchprogram. In these cases, a student was selected without a specific project in mind. The first step was toask the student to identify a project of interest. The difficulty of this approach is that a substantialamount of time can be committed to identifying a project, thereby limiting the amount of time avail-able in the semester to conduct the research. This method was used on two projects. Once of theseprojects resulted in a publication while the second project failed.

When developing the research plan, it was important to limit the scope of the project undertaken.While professors and students are commonly both excited about the project, the attention span of stu-dents, and sometimes professors, can be limited. Students often viewed the projects as a class as op-posed to something that will move their careers substantially forward. It appeared that bragging rightsof having a journal publication were a strong motivator for some students. In addition, several stu-dents were clearly motivated by the advantage that a journal publication would give them in gainingadmission to a quality graduate program. In light of these considerations, it is important to limit thescope of the project to something that can reasonably be accomplished in a semester. In addition, bylimiting the scope of the project, the student is able to experience a larger part of the publicationprocess.

3.4. Completing the project

Significant effort was made to treat the students as research partners as opposed to students underthe direction of a professor. Special care was taken not to condescend to the students and to take eachof their ideas very seriously. It was important for the student to understand that they were an integralpart of the research process. Students are able to quickly recognize a professor who is attempting totake advantage of them and are certain to become disenchanted.

In some instances, the student elected to start working on the project during the semester break, orsummer prior to the start of the semester of enrollment in the program. In most instances, however,the student completed the requirements for the course during the regular semester schedule. Weeklymeetings were scheduled between the professor and the student. One hour was set aside for eachmeeting, though the meetings rarely extended this long. In some instances, the meeting simply turns

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into a status update. In other instances, it is an opportunity for the professor and student to spend timewriting the paper or conducting statistical analysis.

The student was required to hand in a written document at the end of the semester. The documentwas commonly poorly written and incomplete in many ways. Students had a tendency to write thedocument toward the end of the semester with all the haste of final exams and other commitmentsin mind. The document was generally a considerable distance away from a publishable state. This isnot a criticism, but rather reflective of the abilities of undergraduate students and the time limitationsthat they are faced with. Indeed, this experience is consistent with those of Sandnes et al. (2006) whonote that undergraduate students can best participate in research projects by completing develop-ment and labor-intensive tasks. Moreover, the students were unaware of the magnitude of work re-quired to complete a peer-reviewed publication, and as such tended to underestimate the necessarytime commitment. The work of the student represents the foundation for a research project. In orderto achieve a publication, the professor needs to act upon this foundation.

4. Professor expectations

The work load associated with the project must be carefully balanced between the professor andstudent to ensure the integrity of the experience and satisfaction of all involved. In some instances,professors expect the student to complete the project in its entirety. A professor cannot expect to relyon the work of a student to achieve an easy publication. Any professor who views student researchprojects as being an easy way to accomplish a publication, will almost surely be disappointed. Indeedthe experience here was that conducting research with students was rarely a work-reducing event.

The author’s experience is consistent with that of faculty members at the University of Wisconsinwho indicated that undergraduate researchers do not make significant contributions in their eightweek summer research session when weighed against the amount of time that faculty invest in theprogram (Foertsch, Alexander, & Penberthy, 1997). Moreover, the quality of journal that the workcan be published in will almost certainly be lower than what might be expected if the student werereplaced with another professor as a research partner. Thus, in many instances, the professor is mak-ing a sacrifice as opposed to receiving a benefit by engaging in the project.

It was never the case that the project was completed without substantial work on the part of theprofessor both during and after the student has completed his or her work. Students earned threecredits from the project and had many competing responsibilities. They were generally willing to giveat most three credits worth of effort, and in many instances tried to manage their amount of work toless than three credits of effort. Students also had the general view that their responsibilities for theproject were completed at the end of the semester. As such, after the semester was over students wererarely willing to invest significant amounts of time in the project. Given the limitations noted above,professors usually need to commit significant time and energy to each project after the student hascompleted his or her work. This extra effort on the part of the professor makes the difference betweena paper that is publishable and a student paper that collects dust on the professor’s desk.

Although research with undergraduate students has certain limitations, as noted above, professorsshould not summarily reject the idea. Research with undergraduate students can be a fun and reward-ing experience. While the primary goal of undergraduate research should be to benefit the students,regular interaction with students can also serve to keep the professor motivated and engaged in theresearch process. To the extent that intellectual contributions are produced from the research, the pro-fessor can maintain academic qualifications for AACSB accreditation.

5. Assessment

Assessing the value of undergraduate research programs is difficult as noted by Bauer and Bennett(2003). They develop a methodology and instrument that uses alumni perceptions to measure valueadded by undergraduate research programs. Students were not asked to complete formal teachingevaluations as part of the program described here. As such, it is not possible to assess student satis-faction with the program. Primary program assessment was made based on the number of resultingpublications, presentations, award winning presentations, and proceedings.

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Certainly, the publication of a peer-reviewed journal article provides a solid measure of perfor-mance and basis for assessment. The program described here produced ten peer-reviewed journalarticles as listed in Table 1. The articles appeared in journals of varying quality, including a publicationin The Journal of Applied Business Research which is listed as a top business journal in Hull and Wright(1990). Other publications that resulted from this program include the Financial Services Review, whichis ranked as the number two journal among all personal finance and financial planning and counselingjournals in Grable (2006), and Advances in Financial Education which is identified among the top jour-nals in financial education research in Chan and Thapa (2008).

Table 1 also reports three measures of journal quality. Journal quality statistics were taken from thePublish or Perish program available at www.harzing.com. The h-index measures the cumulative im-pact of a journal’s output by looking at the number of citations received. The age-weighted citationrate (AWCR) measures the number of citations, adjusted for the age of each individual paper (Harzing,2008). For both the h-index and AWCR, larger numbers indicate a higher quality journal. Journalacceptance rates were taken from Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities, or the journal web-site (Cabell & English, 2001–2002a; Cabell & English, 2001–2002b; Cabell & English, 2001–2002c).

These three measures also indicate that the work was published in journals of varying quality. Thepapers published as part of this program appeared in Journals with accept rates ranging from as low as5–10% to as high as 40%. The h-index ranged from one to sixteen and the AWCR from 0.37 to 158.27.As a point of reference, the Journal of Accounting Research has an h-index of 113 and an AWCR of4120.51. The Journal of Accounting Education has an h-index of 21 and an AWCR of 241.68. ManagementAccounting Quarterly has an h-index of five and an AWCR of 25.97 (Harzing, 2008).

Other assessment measures include awards, presentations at academic conferences, and publica-tions in proceedings. The program discussed here resulted in four award winning presentations, eightpublications in conference proceedings, and eight presentations at national academic meetings aspresented in Table 2.

Table 1Journal publications

Publications in refereed journals Journal accept rate h-Index AWCR

Jalbert, Terrance, Sadhana Alangar and Napua Young (in press). Additionalevidence on the most prolific authors in finance. Advances in FinancialEducation.

30–40% 1 0.57

Chanfu Ding, Terrance Jalbert and Steve Landry (2007). Evidence on therelationship between university ranks and outcomes measurement. TheCollege Teaching Methods and Styles Journal 3 (2, 2nd Quarter), 1–10.

11–20% N/A N/A

Jalbert, Terrance, Justin Clayton and Eric Rask (2007). Optimal tax-deferral in thepresence of deferral bonuses. Financial Services Review, 16(1), 41–54.

10–15% 16 158.27

Jalbert, Terrance, Eric Rask and Mercedes Jalbert (2007). Optimal tax-deferralchoices in the presence of changing tax regimes, Journal of Applied BusinessResearch, 23(1), 1–12.

21–30% 15 151.24

Jalbert, Terrance and Chantelle Schieven (2007). Geographic based mutualfunds: an empirical analysis of the portfolio properties of a Hawaii focusedfund. Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies Journal, 11(1), 93–110.

21–30% 3 2.23

Jalbert, Terrance and Joshua Mason (2007). Locality ranking systems:methodological considerations and evidence from state ranking. Academy ofAccounting and Financial Studies Journal, 11(1), 47–64.

21–30% 3 2.23

Stewart, Jonathan, Karl-Johan Moritz and Terrance Jalbert (2007). A trading ruletest on Stockholm and US cross-listed securities. International Journal ofBusiness and Finance Research, 1(1), 79–89.

5–10% N/A N/A

Jalbert, Terrance, Jonathan Stewart and Karl-Johan Moritz (2006). Cross borderstock market efficiency: Stockholm vs. US stock prices. Journal of InternationalBusiness Research, 5(1), 21–32.

11–20% 1 0.17

Ishii, Kimberly, Terrance Jalbert, and Mercedes Jalbert (2003). Aqua resort andcasino, a venture capital case study. Business Quest Journal, 1–11.

40% 2 0.83

Jalbert, Terrance and Kapena Lum (2002). The Hawaii cruise company. Journal ofthe International Academy for Case Studies, 8(1, Fall), 39–50.

21–30% 1 0.37

This table lists the awards and journal articles that resulted from the undergraduate research program. In addition, journalquality statistics are reported.

Table 2Awards, proceedings publications and conference presentations

Awards

Best Paper Award at the 2006 College Teaching and Learning Conference Paper: evidence on the relationship between universityranks and outcomes measurement.

Distinguished Research Award at the 2005 Academy for Accounting and Financial Studies Paper: Geographic based mutual funds:an empirical analysis of the portfolio properties of a Hawaii focused fund.

Distinguished Research Award at the 2005 Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies Paper: Locality ranking systems:methodological considerations and evidence from state rankings.

Distinguished Research Award at the 2004 Academy for Studies in International Business. Paper: Cross border stock marketefficiency: Stockholm vs. US stock prices.

Publications in refereed conference proceedingsChanfu Ding, Terrance Jalbert and Steve Landry (2006). Evidence on the relationship between university ranks and outcomes

measurement. College Teaching and Learning Conference, Article 304.Stewart, Jonathan, Terrance Jalbert and Karl-Johan Moritz (2006). A trading rule test using Stockholm and US cross-listed

securities. Global Conference on Business and Finance, p. 78.Jalbert, Terrance and Chantelle Schieven (2005). Geographic based mutual funds: an empirical analysis of the portfolio

properties of a Hawaii focused fund, Allied Academies Conference.Jalbert, Terrance and Joshua Mason (2005). An evaluation of state ranking systems. Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies

Conference, p. 22Jalbert Terrance, Jonathan Stewart and Karl-Johan Moritz (2005). Evidence on the relative efficiency of the Stockholm and US

capital markets. Southwestern Finance Association, March.Jalbert, Terrance, Jonathan Stewart and Karl-Johan Moritz (2004). Evidence on the relative efficiency of the Stockholm and US

capital markets Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies Conference, pp. 37–38.Ishii, Kimberley and Terrance Jalbert (2002). Aqua resort and casino, a venture capital case study, International Business and

Economics Research Conference, Article 525.Jalbert, Terrance and Kapena Lum (2002). The Hawaii Cruise Company: A capital budgeting case study, Hawaii International

Conference on Business.

Presentations at academic meetingsChanfu Ding, Terrance Jalbert and Steve Landry (2006). Evidence on the relationship between university ranks and outcomes

measurement. College Teaching and Learning Conference.Jalbert, Terrance, Justin Clayton and Eric Rask (2006). Optimal tax-deferral in the presence of deferral bonuses. Global Conference

on Business and Finance.Stewart, Jonathan, Terrance Jalbert and Karl-Johan Moritz (2006). A trading rule test using Stockholm and US cross-listed

securities. Global Conference on Business and Finance.Jalbert, Terrance and Chantelle Schieven (2005). Geographic based mutual funds: an empirical analysis of the portfolio

properties of a Hawaii focused fund, Allied Academies Conference.Jalbert, Terrance and Joshaua Mason (2005). An evaluation of state ranking systems,” Academy of Accounting and Financial

Studies.Jalbert Terrance, Jonathan Stewart and Karl-Johan Moritz (2005). Evidence on the relative efficiency of the Stockholm and US

capital markets. Southwestern Finance Association, March.Ishii, Kimberly and Terrance Jalbert (2002). Aqua resort and casino, a venture capital case study. International Business and

Economics Research Conference, October.Jalbert, Terrance and Kapena Lum, (2002). The Hawaii cruise company: a capital budgeting case study, Hawaii International

Conference on Business, June.

This table lists awards, presentations and conferences proceedings that resulted from the undergraduate research program.

T. Jalbert / J. of Acc. Ed. 26 (2008) 104–117 113

Further anecdotal evidence of the success of the program was ascertained based on the placementof students who participated in the program. This placement evidence is certainly subject to pre-selec-tion bias, because participation in the program was limited in a variety of ways as noted previously.Nevertheless, participation in the program is believed to have contributed, to varying degrees, to thestudents’ career path choices. Of nine students who successfully completed a publication as part ofthis program, four are known to have continued on to earn graduate degrees. Two of these four haveindicated their intentions to pursue a Ph.D. Yet another student started a very successful brokeragefirm. The career paths of the remaining four students are unknown.

6. University support

University support is critical to motivate faculty to engage in research projects with students. De-spite the importance of university support, a lack of support is not uncommon. Hakim (1998) reported

114 T. Jalbert / J. of Acc. Ed. 26 (2008) 104–117

that many faculty mentors and students had complaints about the amount of resources that were pro-vided at Jacksonville University.

While many professors conduct directed research projects with their students, few of these pro-jects result in peer-reviewed publications. Thus, some skepticism about this type of project is normallyencountered among faculty and administrators. Nevertheless, a university wishing to encourage thistype of activity must take some risks. Universities can support undergraduate research programs inmultiple ways. The clearest support is to provide professors with course offloads or overload payfor conducting the projects. Faculty believe that undergraduate research time should be considereda part of the faculty course load, especially in instances when the undergraduate’s research leads topublication (Zydney et al., 2002a).

Certainly some professors will accept support for such a project with no real intention of followingthe project through to publication. Thus, the university may need to develop a system to identify andsupport faculty who are most likely to produce publications from the efforts. Perhaps the best way toovercome these issues is to provide after-the-fact funding. That is, to financially support the outcome.This type of support might include an honorarium for each manuscript published with a student in apeer-reviewed journal, or a course release for a certain number of joint student/professor journalpublications.

While direct compensation is desirable, other methods of support are certainly possible. For exam-ple, the university might fund submission fees, page fees, and travel to conferences. In addition, stu-dents might be given course credit, scholarships or hourly compensation for participating in researchprojects. Other creative ways to support undergraduate research programs can be developed. Perhapsthe most important support that can be offered is moral encouragement and recognition. Recognizingfaculty for their efforts in working with students to achieve publications is important, particularly ininstances where financial rewards are not feasible. This support can stem not only from the adminis-tration, but from other faculty, students, and the business community.

If an undergraduate research program is to succeed, it is imperative that the resulting research notbe treated as second class. The resulting publications must be valued for faculty tenure and promotion.If the research projects are not valued for these critical purposes, faculty will not be willing to engagein them. Setting standards for academic qualification, tenure and promotion too high can be detrimen-tal to undergraduate research projects. It is imperative that schools wishing to promote undergraduateresearch consider these elements carefully when establishing standards.

The scope and complexity of an undergraduate research project are necessarily limited. Failure torecognize these limitations, and understand that they imply some limitations on journal quality candoom an undergraduate research program. While formally treating undergraduate research as secondclass is problematic as noted above, informal degrading comments by faculty and administrators canbe equally destructive. Several faculty members and administrators routinely questioned, both for-mally and informally, the quality of the research conducted as part of the program described here.

On several occasions the university funded travel for the professor to present the research at con-ferences. Funding was provided by the university for the student to accompany the professor to oneconference. The university occasionally paid publication fees, but this support was sporadic. Whenprovided, support for publication fees was limited to that portion of the fee attributable to the profes-sor. The student portion of the publication fee was not funded. On one occasion, the professor pro-vided funding for a student to present an article at an academic conference.

The professor did not receive teaching credit or supplemental compensation for engaging in theprogram. The first request for teaching credit was made after the third publication. Obtaining after-the-fact funding is difficult at best in a university setting. The program engaged in here is a primeexample of these difficulties. Professors seeking compensation for such programs are advised to seeka remuneration commitment prior to engaging in the program.

7. Lessons learned

As with any new venture, a number of lessons were learned as the program progressed. The firstlesson was to limit the number of projects underway at any given time. The optimal number of

T. Jalbert / J. of Acc. Ed. 26 (2008) 104–117 115

projects to undertake depends on the other commitments of the professor involved. However, engag-ing in multiple projects divides the professor’s attention, thereby limiting the amount of contact timethe professor has with each student. A second issue that arises in conducting multiple projects is thatthe professor may not have adequate time to move all of the projects to a publishable state. In the pro-gram discussed here, projects were limited to one or two per semester with a single exception of asemester when four projects, involving five students were undertaken. This number of projects provedto be unwieldy with only one of the projects ultimately being published. Zydney et al. (2002b) reportthat University of Delaware faculty average mentoring 1.5 students per academic year.

A second lesson learned was not to allow multiple students to work on the same project. Moremanpower offers the potential of completing a project in a shorter period of time or engaging in alarger project. The difficulties in doing so include freeloader problems, time coordination problems,and arguments over the approach to be taken to the work. These problems can often be of sufficientmagnitude to doom the project. A single student on a project keeps the responsibility focused andproved to be the optimal strategy in the research program described here. In most of the cases dis-cussed here, a single student was selected to work on a project. In three cases, multiple studentswere selected to work on the project. None of these multiple student projects produced a publishableproduct.

Interestingly, in some cases students may try to free-load a publication from a professor. This isparticularly likely if the student senses that the professor wants the publication worse than the stu-dent. This may be the case if the professor is approaching a promotion decision or has a strong desireto demonstrate the viability of the student/professor research program. Certainly some students willnot hesitate to exploit a professor, given the opportunity to do so. One student made a free-loader at-tempt as a part of the program described here. It is important for professors to maintain the integrityof the research program. In order for the program to be successful, it is imperative that the studentwant the publication as much, or more than, the professor does.

Given the questions surrounding research quality that may be raised by other faculty and admin-istrators, it is advisable for faculty engaging in undergraduate research not to rely entirely on under-graduate research projects for their intellectual contributions. This is especially true for faculty whoare facing tenure or promotion actions or where established academic qualification standards requirepublication in very high-quality journals. Maintaining a balanced approach allows the faculty memberto hedge the risk of these criticisms. The author of this article derived approximately one third of histotal research production from undergraduate research projects.

A final lesson learned is that it is critical to secure university support for an undergraduate researchprogram prior to engaging in the program. The first request for university support for this programwas not made until after the third publication was completed. As noted earlier, obtaining supportfor a project after-the-fact is a difficult task in a university setting. In this case, significant supportfor the program from the university was never realized despite repeated requests.

8. Concluding comments

With increased pressure to publish, universities and individual faculty members must becomeincreasingly creative in achieving their research goals. This paper describes a program that involvedconducting research with undergraduate students. While the literature contains a number of articlesthat discuss the merits of conducting research with undergraduate students, this paper is among thefirst to discuss the implementation and best practices of such a program. This paper is also the firstknown paper to examine conducting undergraduate research with accounting and finance students.

The program described here was conducted over a period of six-years. The program resulted in fourresearch awards, ten publications in peer-reviewed journals, eight proceedings, and eight conferencepresentations. In two instances, follow on projects were undertaken with the same student. In one ofthose instances a second student was added to the follow on project. While not all projects were suc-cessful in producing a publication, especially in the early stages of the program, as the program devel-oped and matured the projects had a higher probability of success. Of the last ten projects undertakenin the program, eight were successful in producing publications.

116 T. Jalbert / J. of Acc. Ed. 26 (2008) 104–117

Professors who hope to publish research with students should be encouraged by the results of theexperience reported here. Indeed, researching with undergraduate students proved to be a challengingand fun experience. Professors and administrators might draw on the experiences reported here to im-prove the implementation of their own programs.

Professors are cautioned not to view an undergraduate research program as an easy route toachieving publications. Indeed, from a work standpoint, it would generally be easier for the professorto engage in the research individually. However, if the professor has a particular penchant for workingwith students, the projects can be both fun and rewarding. Professors considering such a program areencouraged to obtain resource commitments from administrators prior to engaging in the program.

University administrators can draw on the experiences here to most effectively encourage and de-velop an undergraduate research program. University administrators wishing to encourage the devel-opment of an undergraduate research program should carefully develop a compensation scheme toreward faculty for their participation. They should review tenure and promotion guidelines to ensurethat undergraduate research is properly recognized. Finally, administrators should formally and infor-mally communicate to faculty members that these activities are valued.

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