But of the three, the use of student subjects is the most troublesome in attempting to generalize results. We
first note that using student subjects is not a problem if the resulting predictions of the study can be
shown to be independent of the subject pool. We conclude that researchers in behavioral accounting
have a responsibility to address the extent to which each of the three concerns—and particularly the use
of student subjects—has had an impact on the study’s conclusions and whether they can be generalized.
None of the behavioral studies in our sample meet this responsibility.