For her and her team’s efforts in enhancing accounting education, Missouri State University’s Dr. Mollie Adams has received the 2023 American Taxation Association’s (ATA) Teaching Innovation Award. 

This recognition celebrates her team’s outstanding educational case titled, “La Maison des Comptables: A Tax Research, Data Management, and Visualization Case,” which stood out for its innovative approach and practical applicability in accounting education. 

The award-winning case study  

Adams, an assistant professor in MSU’s School of Accountancy and her three co-authors, Kerry Inger, Tina Loraas and James Long from Auburn University, aimed to bridge the gap between tax and accounting information systems curricula, providing students with a holistic understanding of critical business processes through research.  

“The case contains multi-jurisdictional tax research, data management and data visualization tasks and is designed to be implemented in the graduate accounting curriculum,” Adams said.  

“Implementing the case across multiple courses and requiring students to not only identify tax law, but then also apply that law, helps students see through the individual course silos and understand how different accounting disciplines are interconnected.”  

What sets this case apart is its ability to connect various accounting disciplines. By integrating tax law identification and application across multiple courses in the graduate accounting curriculum, Adams and her team empower students to navigate real-world challenges with confidence and competence. 

The ATA Teaching Innovation Award  

The ATA presents an annual Teaching Innovation Award, which comes with a plaque and $5,000. Submissions are accepted for innovations in tax courses. Criteria for these innovations include the novel use of a learning technique or methodology, an experiment in group learning or problem-solving and the integration of nontechnical issues (ethics, communication skills, etc.) into the tax curriculum.  

“The process of creating and refining an educational case can take multiple years,” Adams said. My co-authors and I have been working on this case since 2019. We put in the level of effort that we do because we believe well-developed case studies are important tools in accounting education.  

Learn more about the School of Accountancy