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SARGENT not just in the auditing field,” says Sargent. Sar-
gent’s micro cases teaching participants to tease
BUSINESS out the confirming and disconfirming evidence
translates into innovative teaching methods to
P sychologists call it “confirmation bias” help her MGA Accounting majors learn how to
when people are more likely to notice audit and improve the quality of their thinking.
comments that confirm their beliefs and less Starting in 2017 the CPA exam includes busi-
likely to notice contradictory information. ness simulations, leading many students to try to
Dr. Carol Springer Sargent, associate profes- complete the exam before those requirements be-
sor of Accounting, develops learning materials gin. Sargent’s students need not rush as they have
that help both students and auditors to improve been completing business simulations in their
their ability to notice disconfirming data better, senior level classes as a course routine. Much of
leading to more balanced judgments of overall her research developing business simulations and
audit evidence. “Learning to see both sides of an tracking how they improve downstream course
argument clearly helps to develop better thinking performance has been published in Issues in Ac-
and judgments help improve decision-making, counting Education and resulting in a national
award for outstanding research in accounting
education.
Sargent has coached four MGA teams in the
statewide internal audit case competition, which
have reached first, second and third places in
different years. As a result of consistently placing,
MGA was invited to serve on the Academic Rela-
tions Board of the Atlanta Chapter of the Institute
of Internal Auditors and to apply for certification
from the Internal Auditing Education Partnership
program.
ART SIMMONS, RIDDLE, HAMON
Artists and creators have always had to adapt 2017 Southern Humanities Conference. Using
to new technologies. But now, modern digi- modern digital technology and a light show, the
tal technologies threaten to turn original presentation explored the nature of the digital
works into commodities by endlessly echoing and work as a hyperobject – a four-dimensional (4-D)
extending them through the hypersphere of the object existing nowhere and accessible anywhere
Internet. “We need to ask ourselves as artists what and everywhere – instead of as a physical object
defines the nature of our work now that the digital existing only in one place and time.
image has become the standard, as we have moved
away from hand-processed images and embraced
software,” says Lee Simmons, assistant professor
of Art.
With those challenges in mind, Simmons
and other faculty members at MGA – Shannon
Riddle and Dr. Keith Hamon – worked with
Craig Coleman of Mercer University to install an
interactive performance piece and present it at the
MGA Faculty continues on page 12
Spring 2017 MGA TODAY 11
