Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches in Accounting Education: A qualitative overview of their benefits, drawbacks and challenges

The proposed chapter addresses the impact that the COVID19 pandemic had on the delivery of Accounting courses in higher education, by an in-depth analysis of the organizational and educational changes the Management Department of the University of a Turin adopted in order to face the emergency. The University of Turin adapted its core delivery methods by offering synchronous online classes delivered via Webex, along with asynchronous recordings of the above mentioned classes and extra teaching material made available for students to download on the Moodle platform. The chapter explores the paradigm of synchronous and asynchronous learning, analyzing how online classes and the availability of digital resources have impacted the habits and the performance of Accounting students. The analysis will be carried out as follows. First, there will be an analysis of the current state of the literature regarding online learning environments, with a particular focus on publications related to the Accounting Education field and Learning Management Systems. Building on the existing literature, the proposed chapter will analyze the implementation of online classes in the Accounting courses delivered by the University of Turin, via an in-depth qualitative approach. The chapter aims to provide an insight into how effective the use of asynchronous content in Accounting education has been during the COVID19 pandemic. Furthermore, the authors aim to explore which elements of synchronous and asynchronous learning were effective, to offer ideas and prompts for further research on the post pandemic future of Accounting Education.