Teaching Business Transaction Cycles Using a Hands-On Activities Approach

We present a novel hands-on approach for teaching students the concepts and business processes of transaction cycles. Specifically, the hands-on activities focus on sales and procurement cycles. Upon completion of the hands-on activities, students will (a) develop a better understanding of the business processes and business forms for sales and procurement cycles and (b) build relevant critical thinking skills. We evaluate students’ learning by providing a comparison between students who learned the concepts of transaction cycles and business processes and performed the transaction cycle hands-on activity in class versus those students who only learned the concepts of transaction cycles and business processes in class. Although the hands-on activities were used in an accounting information systems class, they can also be applied to other business disciplines, such as engineering and project management classes.