Peer Review

Cash Discounts

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Jul 30, 2006 by Business

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This self study tutorial covers the material associated with computing cash
discounts. It is part of a series of tutorials for principles of financial accounting students located on a website at Elizabeth City State University. The module can serve as an introduction or review of the subject, and allows the user to actually self- test on one computation.

Type of Material:

Tutorial, consisting of about a dozen slides

Recommended Uses:

For homework or review. Also could be used to lecture on the material in the
class if the professor so desired.

Technical Requirements:

Requires Internet Explorer 5.1 or above

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Understand the terminology and application of cash discounts.
To understand why cash discounts are used and how to calculate the cash flow within a discount period.
To interrelate cash discount understanding with terminology associated with freight.

Target Student Population:

High school or college students enrolled in bookkeeping or principles of
accounting courses.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Little to no business or accounting knowledge is necessary for students to
benefit from this module.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

This module is very succinct, well written, and should engage students in learning.
In addition to providing and overview of cash discounts, it also includes the handling of freight charges, which some principles of accounting texts do not emphasize as much as they could.
Content is accurate, current, and relevant to the study of principles of financial accounting.

Concerns:

The module needs to be supplemented to explain how cash discounts are recorded.
The explaination of freight possibilties is somewhat limited.
As a result the module is not entirely self-contained.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

The module is very efficient for explaining cash discounts and then demonstrating how to calculate them.
Concepts are reinforced progressively demonstrating relationships among them.
Instructors can easily develop assignments for this module.
An excellent slide explains why customers take the cash discounts. In addition a brief discussion compares the discount to an annual rate.
The inclusion freight collect terminology, the material on freight being excluded from the discount, as well as the types of shipments that businesses make are good features.

Concerns:

Learning objectives have not been included.
The module is perhaps too brief (see quality concerns above).
The explanation regarding 18 periods in 360 days that could result in a 18% return was a bit confusing. Instructor will likely need to elaborate on the concept.
Instrutors would likey benefit from taking the approach of showing students how much money could be saved by borrowing in order to take advantage of the discount offered.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The module is very user friendly and very visually appealing.
It takes only approximately 5 minutes to complete.
Instructions are clear.
Color is coordinated nicely to distinguish the separate parts of the discount terms. This feature is carried through subsequent discussions.
Interactivity in terms of letting the user answer a question was very good.
Users can also use the back key to retrace ones steps.
Left-clicking at the top of each slide allows users to interrupt the auto-timed progression of the module for that particular slide.

Concerns:

Sometimes the green type over the blue background is a little hard to read.
In order to access the module from the link provided, the user has to click on the side bar title, Cash Discounts. On the other hand, this feature makes the user aware of other modules that may be useful on related course topics.
On the last slide, the show abruptly ends with no options to continue on to other modules or repeat previous ones.
Instructions should indicate that left clicking allows the user to move more quickly through the slides.

Other Issues and Comments:

Cash Discounts is frankly more fun to complete than reading the material in the textbook in a non-interactive manner.
A brief explanation of freight costs and how the cash discount does not apply to that portion of the billing is an excellent inclusion.

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