A persona-based framework for teaching financial statement analysis with Generative AI: pedagogical design and practical application

Mirna Ibrahim
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Mirna Ibrahim: N/A

Advances in Economics Education, 2025, vol. 4, issue 2, 152-182

Abstract: Financial statement analysis requires students to understand that identical financial data yield different insights depending on the analytical perspective adopted. This paper presents a pedagogical framework that leverages GenAI to teach financial statement analysis through four distinct professional personas, including equity analyst, credit analyst, internal manager, and auditor. Building on stakeholder theory (Freeman 2010) and situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger 1991), I develop comprehensive prompt sequences that guide students through persona-specific analytical processes. Using Walmart Inc. and Netflix Inc. as contrasting case studies, a mature retailer versus a growth-oriented technology firm, we demonstrate how each persona prioritizes different metrics, asks different questions, and reaches different conclusions from identical financial statements. The framework provides educators with ready-to-implement prompt hierarchies progressing from basic ratio calculation to complex interpretative analysis. This structured approach addresses documented challenges in accounting and finance education, including the difficulty novice learners face in understanding contextual financial analysis (Grimm and Blazovich 2016) and the need for scalable methods to provide individualized feedback (Warren et al. 2025). The framework contributes to scholarship on technology-enhanced learning by demonstrating how GenAI can scaffold professional reasoning development while maintaining pedagogical rigor.

Keywords: GenAI; ChatGPT; Copilot; Gemini; Persona; Pedagogical design; Accounting education; Finance education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A22 B20 N01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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