The Pathways Commission (2012, p. 11) has expressed concern that “students are exposed to technical material in a vocationfocused way that is dis-embodied from the complex real world to which students are bound.” This finding suggests that there is a gap between theory and practice in accounting education. It is of even greater concern that this finding is not just a recent phenomenon (Albrecht & Sack, 2000; American Accounting Association, 1986; Arthur Andersen et al., 1989). The Pathways Commission (2012, p. 86) further found that accountants were still perceived as “scorekeepers, monitors or bean counters.” This has in part been blamed on the current teaching resources and the need for new material that “can help students understand the basic bookkeeping elements that serve as a foundation of an accounting education while also conveying the more strategic, dynamic aspects of accounting” (The Pathways Commission, 2012, p. 88). This explanation is consistent with a suggestion that students should be introduced to the broader context of the subject at an early stage (Ferguson, Collison, Power, & Stevenson, 2006), and that failure to do so contributes to the maintenance of the status quo. As higher educational institutions still rely extensively on textbooks as instructional tools (McFall, 2005), one possible explanation for the criticisms outlined lies with the textbook. The observations above provide the motivation and objective to examine the extent to which the textbooks which have been adopted for the first preparer-focused accounting course offered by New Zealand universities have embraced the changing role of accountants and current accounting practice. As four of the five adopted textbooks are either American textbooks or authorised adaptations of American textbooks, these findings will have implications for educators and authors beyond New Zealand. This study provides a source of reflection for textbook authors, instructors and subject designers, and contributes to the debate on introductory accounting course design and the integration of technology into the introductory accounting courses.