All About the Bite! Increasing Student Engagement Through the Use of Shark Tank

Abstract

This paper presents an active learning exercise to help introductory accounting students learn financial statement analysis. Utilizing television media, students watch a segment from the hit reality series Shark Tank, during which they are exposed to a start-up business. Students switch between instructor-led class discussion and small-group collaborative work to analyze the business, calculate financial ratios, and compare the business to a fictitious competitor. The results from pre- and post-exercise questionnaires suggest that the activity is a valuable use of class time and increases students’ ratings of the usefulness of financial statements and financial statement analysis.