Pair financial ratio analysis with the stories the numbers leave out

A student calculates days in inventory correctly, compares it with the previous year and concludes that a lower figure is favourable. Then you ask: favourable for whom, and what else would you need to know?

The calculation remains useful. But it cannot, by itself, establish what inventory management means for workers, customers or the environment. That distinction opens a teaching opportunity: students can learn to interpret financial information while recognising the questions it does not answer.

Joanne Sopt, Lisa Powell and Dayna O. H. Walker explore this opportunity in Beyond a Single Story: Integrating Counter Accounts in an Introductory Financial Accounting Course, published in Issues in Accounting Education. Their semester-long sequence asks students to analyse Nike’s financial statements and create counter accounts: alternative accounts that bring perspectives missing from the financial narrative into view.

This is directly accounting-specific work, with discussion prompts, project instructions, rubrics (guides to marking criteria and levels of performance) and an individual reflection task. Its practical value lies in a teaching design that lecturers can inspect. The evaluation provides evidence of modest changes in respondents’ reported attitudes, not demonstrated improvements in accounting competence.

Keep the calculation, widen the question

The project does not replace financial analysis with storytelling. Students calculate six ratios, compare them with the prior year and assess Nike’s financial health. The ratios cover profitability, inventory, receivables, asset use, liquidity and liabilities relative to assets.

They then create an alternative story in a format of their choosing, such as photographs, drawing, video or music. Crucially, they must explain both the creative work and its relationship to their financial analysis. The alternative account might complement the ratios, challenge an interpretation or reveal information needed for a broader assessment.

Days in inventory provides a manageable starting point. The published discussion prompt asks students to move beyond “lower is better”. For a local adaptation, a lecturer could ask students to distinguish three things: what the ratio measures, what its movement might suggest, and what additional evidence would be needed to assess that movement from another stakeholder’s perspective.

A shorter inventory holding period does not establish better or worse working conditions. Students interested in workers’ experiences would need relevant evidence about those conditions, then explain whether and how it connects to inventory management. The task is not to attach a social concern to a number, but to justify the connection or acknowledge that it remains uncertain.

That distinction also protects technical accuracy. Multiple perspectives on company performance do not make every accounting treatment or unsupported interpretation equally acceptable.

Build towards the connection

The final creative project is the culmination of repeated discussion, not an isolated assignment. Students begin with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story and interviews about diversity in the accounting profession. They consider who tells an accounting story, who it is for and whose perspectives may be absent.

Next, students complete two of four available Nike discussion activities, linking course topics to wider questions. These include inventory, receivables or intangibles, cash or land, and earnings per share versus market price. Students respond individually and engage with classmates’ posts. The instructor brings their contributions back into classroom discussion.

The sequence matters because connecting an alternative account to financial analysis can be difficult. The authors report that the explanatory component of the group project generated the most student questions. They supported students by summarising earlier discussions and facilitating connections during presentations. After the group project, an individual reflection returns to the opening questions.

For a new lecturer, this suggests a practical planning question: where will students practise making the connection before it becomes assessed work? Simply inviting them to “be creative” leaves much of the analytical task unspecified.

The professional-diversity discussions also need local consideration. The authors recommend adapting sources to the cohort and profession rather than assuming that the US interviews will resonate everywhere. Students’ experiences may inform discussion, but those experiences should not be treated as interchangeable or as evidence of profession-wide conditions.

Assess the reasoning, not the preferred viewpoint

The entire sequence carried 25% to 33% of course marks, alongside traditional homework, quizzes and examinations. Adoption therefore involves a substantial assessment decision, not just the addition of an interesting classroom activity.

The published rubric addresses understanding, depth and creativity. The instructor emphasised original, thoughtful work, such as students taking their own photographs rather than assembling images found online. A lecturer adapting the project could go further by making technical accuracy, source credibility, evidential justification and the connection between accounts separately visible in the marking criteria.

This would help distinguish an engaging presentation from a convincing analysis. A polished video may communicate clearly but still offer little evidence. Conversely, a modestly presented account may identify a genuine limitation and explain it carefully.

Fair treatment of disagreement is another local design question. Students should know that a well-supported disagreement can receive credit. Continuing to prioritise financial viability does not necessarily mean that a student has failed to recognise other perspectives, a possibility the authors acknowledge when discussing their survey measures.

A useful proposed safeguard is to require students to distinguish reported facts, allegations, personal experiences and creative interpretations. Counter accounts deserve scrutiny too. The source did not evaluate these marking refinements, but they follow from the need to assess analysis rather than agreement with an instructor.

Adoption requires preparation as well as marking decisions. Before reuse, check the linked resources, company data and technical prompts. The appendices contain placeholders rather than populated financial figures or complete worked solutions. Appendix F also introduces diluted earnings per share while quoting a basic earnings-per-share formula, an inconsistency to resolve before teaching it.

Preparation, marking time, group arrangements and access to creative formats need planning; total workload was not quantified.

Look for more than changed attitudes

Across five semesters, 429 students participated at one diverse, urban US public university, with all classes taught by the lead author. Complete before-and-after surveys were available for 174 students, or 41% of participants.

Among those respondents, agreement declined across nine statements about financial information’s primacy, accounting’s neutrality and the profession’s diversity and openness. The changes were statistically significant but modest. For example, mean agreement that financial statements are the best way to assess company health fell from 5.01 to 4.59 on a seven-point scale.

Comments from 77 students illustrated recognition of alternative perspectives, particularly workers and the environment. Responses were not uniform: some students retained more traditional views, while others said they already understood the issues discussed.

There was no comparison group, so the changes cannot be attributed specifically to counter accounts rather than other course experiences. Incomplete paired-survey coverage leaves uncertainty about how representative the respondents were. The methods also describe seven statistical tests although the table contains nine items, a reporting inconsistency requiring clarification. Underlying data, linked media, corporate records and cited studies were not independently checked for this article.

Most importantly, changed agreement with a statement is not the same as stronger independent analysis. A lecturer trying the approach could therefore begin with one previously taught ratio and one reviewed alternative source, then use a later individual task to examine calculation, interpretation and evidential justification separately. That shortened activity would be an adaptation, not the evaluated sequence.

The useful next question is not simply whether students now see more stories. It is whether they can explain what each account supports, what it leaves unresolved and what evidence they would need next.