The Influence of Ethics Course and Teaching and Learning Approaches on Islamic Ethical Behavior of Accounting Students in Malaysian Islamic Universities

The world has seen numerous accounting scandals and widespread power abuse, which seem to be ongoing problems in business and financial industries. Over the last decade, many efforts have been taken to ensure that the Enron scandal would never be repeated. This includes integrating ethics courses in accounting programs at the universities. This research aims to examine the effectiveness of Business Ethics and Corporate Governance (BE & CG), a core course offered for undergraduate accounting students by all public universities in Malaysia, and its effect on the Islamic ethical behavior of accounting students. Using constructivist theory and the theory of reasoned action, the study examined the relationships between the teaching and learning approaches with the Islamic ethical behavior of accounting students. These relationships are mediated by a deep learning approach. This study was conducted using a survey questionnaire method, and the sample comprise of the undergraduate accounting students enrolled in BE & CG course in three universities in Malaysia that are categorized as Islamic-based universities, namely Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA), Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), and Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM). There are five hypotheses developed for this study where hypothesis 5 involved pre and post-test. The data is analyzed using SmartPLS 3.0. Overall, constructive teaching approach is dominant in this study which led to the use of a deep learning approach by the students. This study also found that even though accounting students already possess good Islamic ethical behavior prior to the ethics course, Islamic ethical behavior improved after ethics intervention which proved the significant relationship between the two variables. There are theoretical and practical implications from this study. For the theoretical implications, this study contributes to the dearth of literature especially for pedagogy in the accounting discipline. Besides, the use of deep learning approach (DLA) as a mediator and also the development of Islamic ethical behavior (IEB) index serve different research perspective on ethics especially in accounting. For the practical implications, this study provide valuable insights for various parties such as course instructors, course advisors and regulators, and researchers related to ethics and accounting education, in which can help to improved accounting curriculum in higher learning institutions.