MFRS 119 Revision Kit: a visual micro-learning toolkit for simplifying employee benefits accounting

Malaysian Financial Reporting Standard (MFRS) 119: Employee Benefits is widely recognised as one of the most technically complex standards in financial reporting due to its extensive requirements on classification, recognition, and measurement of employee benefits. The standard requires entities to recognise liabilities arising from employee services and to measure obligations based on future economic outflows, often involving actuarial assumptions and present value considerations. These requirements impose a high level of cognitive demand on learners, particularly when distinguishing among multiple benefit categories, such as short-term benefits, post-employment benefits, other long-term benefits, and termination benefits. Prior pedagogical evidence indicates that students frequently struggle with conceptual differentiation, recognition timing, and measurement techniques, resulting in fragmented understanding and poor transfer of knowledge to examination scenarios. Traditional instructional approaches, which are predominantly text-based and lecture-driven, are often insufficient in facilitating deep learning, particularly for conceptually dense topics in financial reporting. This study introduces the MFRS 119 Revision Kit, a digital visual micro-learning toolkit designed to address these pedagogical challenges by transforming complex accounting content into structured, interactive, and visually enriched learning materials. This innovation project was designed using a Canva-based platform; the toolkit integrates concise explanatory notes and guided problem-solving examples. The design is grounded in Cognitive Load Theory, which emphasises the management of intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load, and Dual Coding Theory, which highlights the effectiveness of combining visual and verbal information to enhance learning outcomes. The innovation aims to improve conceptual understanding, strengthen application skills, and increase learner engagement. Theoretically, it contributes to accounting education by operationalising micro-learning within a complex technical domain. Practically, it offers a scalable and adaptable digital learning solution. Preliminary observations suggest that the toolkit enhances cognitive processing efficiency, supports knowledge retention, and improves students’ ability to apply accounting standards in problem-solving contexts