What skills and attributes does an accounting graduate need? Evidence from student perceptions and employer expectations

For some years there has been much debate between various stakeholders about the need for accounting graduates to develop a broader set of skills to be able to pursue a career in the accounting profession. This study uses mixed methods to examine perceptions and expectations of two major stakeholders: students and employers. Findings indicate that students are becoming aware of employers’ expectations in terms of communication, analytical, professional and teamwork skills. Although employers are still expecting a good understanding of basic accounting skills and strong analytical skills, they are also requiring ‘business awareness’ and knowledge in terms of the ‘real world’. Both students and employers report that many of the ‘essential’ non‐technical and professional skills and attributes are not being developed sufficiently in university accounting programmes.     

Evaluating a method of integrating generic skills with accounting content based on a functional theory of meaning

This paper documents and evaluates an intervention designed to integrate the learning of selected generic skills, particularly analytical thinking and written communication skills, with the learning of accounting content. The method used was to scaffold practice in analytical thinking skills through specially designed writing activities. Content‐focused learning materials adapted from task‐types currently used to teach language skills were used to facilitate the analysis and interrelation of accounting concepts, principles and problems in interpersonal communicative contexts typical of actual accounting practice. The materials, in three assignments, were designed to incorporate: (i) selected generic skills, taken from those listed by the professional accounting bodies; (ii) writing, both as communication and as an instrument for analytical thinking and learning; (iii) knowledge of accounting concepts and principles; and (iv) awareness of the interpersonal dimensions of professional communication. Overall, students showed improved learning outcomes, with improvements of 19 percentage points for non‐Australian students over the three assignments. We were also able to show significant positive relationships between the assessments of assignments 2 and 3 and performance in the knowledge‐based final examination. Improvements in the quality of learning were shown in students’ improved ability to assess their own work.     

Students’ conceptions of learning in the context of an accounting degree

Students' conceptions of learning (CoL) play an important role in the learning process leading to the development of generic skills. This paper investigates whether CoL of accounting students can be developed by incorporating high-level cognitive skills progressively within the accounting curriculum. First, the study explored, using phenomenography, the variation in accounting students' CoL. The findings highlighted some nuances in accountings students' CoL and that lower-order CoL were prevalent among accounting students. However, more (less) third-year students than second-year students adopted higher- (lower-) order CoL. Upon examining the learning objectives, teaching methods and assessment of all units comprising the accounting major of the host university, evidence was found that CoL are progressively developed and shaped, albeit in a limited way, based on the levels of cognitive domain emphasised within the curriculum. The findings highlight the need for accounting educators to take a whole of the programme approach to developing higher-order CoL.     

Meeting threshold learning standards through self-management in group oral presentations: observations on accounting postgraduate students

This study explores the development of student self-management skills through an oral presentation task. It is motivated by the challenge to maintain consistent quality in students’ oral skills and to incorporate national accounting curriculum requirements for threshold learning standards into an accounting subject. The study has been conducted in Australia using a sample of postgraduate accounting students, and the task required the students to prepare a group presentation using action learning. The data were collected using in-class observation and a survey. Students indicated that they were more confident and comfortable in preparing and presenting the oral presentations as compared with their previous experiences. This was especially due to students having a second opportunity to improve their presentations allowing a better understanding of the expected standard. The oral presentation task benefitted all students but was especially useful for those who had limited experience speaking in front of a larger audience.     

Accounting Undergraduates' Perceptions of Cooperative Learning as a Model for Enhancing their Interpersonal and Communication Skills to Interface Successfully with Professional Accountancy Education and Training

To interface effectively with professional accountancy training, accounting educationalists should ensure that they turn out graduates who possess the interpersonal and communication skills required of today's accountant. Attainment of these skills is promoted by group work. However, little empirical evidence exists to help academics make an informed choice about which form of group learning enhances interpersonal and communication skills. This paper addresses this deficiency by comparing perceptions of skills enhancement between accounting students who experienced traditional or simple group learning and those who undertook cooperative learning. The findings reveal that the cooperative learning cohort perceived their learning experience to be significantly more effective at enhancing interpersonal and communication skills than that of the simple group learning cohort. This study provides evidence that cooperative learning is a more effective model for delivering interpersonal and communication skills than simple group learning, thereby creating a more successful interface between academic accounting and professional accountancy training.     

Learning through writing in a first-year accounting course

More than any other activity at a university, the writing experiences of students are directly linked to their academic progress. This paper reports on the practical steps taken in restructuring the curriculum of a first-year accounting course at the University of Sydney to develop students’ writing skills within a broader skills-based program to enhance learning. Three dimensions of students’ writing skills are addressed: writing skills as prerequisites for learning, writing skills as a means of learning, and writing skills as an outcome of learning.The paper explains how the educational theory about learning to write and writing to learn contributed to a pedagogical framework for teaching practice and gives several examples as illustration of the pedagogy. Interactive reading guides, annotated model answers, analysis grids, and formative self and peer assessment are among techniques adopted to encourage students to reflect actively on their own learning through writing. The curriculum redesign project reported here was first introduced in 1994, and substantially modified in 1995 in response to feedback. In general, the quality of submitted assignments, examination performance, and feedback from both staff and students suggests that the innovations reported in the paper have helped students to improve their writing skills and enabled them to become more engaged with the learning of the content of the course. Quantitative feedback between 1994–1997 confirms these conclusions.     

A pedagogical note on the relationship between valuation methods and lifetime income

This paper presents an algebraic analysis to help students understand that the choice of a valuation method may or may not produce a permanent difference in reported income, depending upon a number of factors. By analysing these factors and the relationships among them, accounting students can increase their understanding of alternative accounting techniques and, at the same time, obtain additional practice in developing crucial analytical skills.     

Towards an understanding of excel functional skills needed for a career in public accounting: Perceptions from public accountants and accounting students

Public accounting firms (e.g., Grant Thornton, 2012) are stressing an interest in recruiting accounting students with a proficiency in Excel. The purpose of this study is to investigate which Excel functions are perceived to be important and useful for new hires to understand prior to starting a job in public accounting. We collect survey data from four large public accounting firms as well as undergraduate and graduate accounting students (i.e., potential new hires) to gauge perceptions of Excel importance, knowledge, and usage in public accounting. We find that employees at the firms believe the most important Excel functions are: basic formula, filter and sort data, vertical (horizontal) lookup, formatting of documents, and If/Then statements. In a comparison of new hires at public accounting firms with accounting students, results suggest that accounting students underestimate the importance and usage of some of these Excel functions. In addition, results suggest that new hires’ perceived knowledge on how to use specific Excel functions in their accounting job is statistically different than students’ perceived knowledge on how to use some of the same Excel functions. Our research contributes to educational accounting literature by documenting which Excel functions employers in public accounting want new hires to know prior to starting a job in public accounting. Also, this research informs accounting educators that students’ perceptions are not the same as public accounting employers’ expectations with respect to analytical skills using Excel technology.     

Innovation or renovation: effective project design for accounting and MBA students

It has long been recognized that accounting and finance students need multidisciplinary skills and most degree courses reflect this in the curriculum. In addition, the growth of business administration courses, with a high accounting and finance content, and the constant call for relevance and ‘real world’ application, has persuaded many academics that educational progress can be made by employing project-based group work to bring together diverse skills and disciplines. This paper endorses that view, but suggests that careful thought is required to match the aims of the project with the developing skills and experience of the student groups. It explores the role of project clients and student learning and also the level of faculty involvement necessary to fulfil learning objectives. These issues are explored within the context of a project on mergers and acquisitions, which combines strategy, economics, accounting and behavioural considerations and has been employed on full-time MBA courses at one UK university (disguised as ‘Utopia’ in the paper) for more than 20 years. Experience from the project suggests that renovation of old methods is often preferable to major innovations and that the involvement of outside clients needs to be thought through carefully. A semi-live close-bounded version of the project is shown to work better than an open-ended pure consultancy project.     

Critical thought on critical thinking research

Calls for improving the critical thinking ability of accounting students have been clear and repeated in both the accounting education and professional accounting literature. Although numerous ideas for developing critical thinking skills have been generated, there remains a significant lack of empirical evidence, in both the accounting education and higher education literature, that any specific instructional method can enhance the critical thinking skills of students. Given the lack of empirical support for success in the development of critical thinking skills, the value of further efforts to develop students' critical thinking skills must be questioned. The premise of this paper is that accounting programs and faculty wanting to address the issue of developing critical thinking skills in their curricula should be able to empirically examine whether their efforts are achieving the desired effects. This article first presents a brief review of prior research on critical thinking skills development and then offers suggestions to improve the design of future research on this topic. The authors attempt to provide guidance on the design of more powerful empirical tests of promising curricular strategies so that accounting faculty can determine if their attempts to enhance student critical thinking skills are meeting expectations.     

An integrated approach to communication skills in an accounting curriculum

While accounting students think that they do not need written and oral communication skills in order to succeed in the profession, educators and practitioners stress the need for these skills. Not only is there a set of perceived factors of success in the field that includes the quality of communication skills, but also managers in many different industries complain that recent graduates are unable to effectively communicate their ideas in writing. This article presents the results of an integrated approach to this problem along with specific methodologies, cases, and heuristic evaluation of the program. In addition, it is proposed that communication skills are best taught within professional accounting programs in core courses rather than being taught solely either as part of general education or by a special business communication course.     

Communication instruction: What is being done to develop the communication skills of accounting students?

A survey was conducted to determine what colleges and universities are doing to improve accounting students' communication skills and how they are doing it. Results indicate that much is already being done to improve the communication skills of accounting students, and that more programs are being planned. The survey revealed that accounting students at most of the responding colleges and universities have access to formal instruction in business communication, and that some communication programs are tailored for accounting majors. In addition to communication programs already in effect at the time of the survey, several schools were planning to add either an accounting communication course or an integrated skills program.     

Developing critical reflection: An integrated approach

The increasing impact of globalisation and digitalisation on accounting reinforces the need for accounting education to develop students' core professional skills such as communication, analytical skills and critical thinking, as well as their ability to evaluate the relativity of their knowledge and acknowledge learning needs. This paper reports on a comparative study that explores outcomes from surveys of two separate student groups as they engaged with the elements and components of a task designed to develop their skills and ability to reflect on the currency of knowledge. Findings show merit in the design's integrated and interactive approach, including the transition of students' perspectives, with critical reflection developed through sequencing individual and cooperative learning, oral and written exercises, and formative and summative assessment. Survey responses from students indicate that they responded positively to the challenge of critically reflecting upon research and articulating the relativity of their knowledge.     

Do Accounting Graduates’ Skills Meet The Expectations of Employers? A Matter of Convergence or Divergence

This study investigates the emphasis placed on technical and generic skills developed during undergraduate accounting courses from both the graduate and employer perspective. It is motivated by two issues. First, calls by the accounting profession and international education committees regarding the professional adequacy of graduates. Second, by the challenge facing educators and professional bodies to ensure accounting courses equip graduates with the necessary skills to add value to business. Data obtained from 174 graduates from an Australian university is compared with the perceived needs of a sample of employers. Major findings suggest that, while both groups acknowledged the importance of technical accounting skills, employers require a broad range of generic skills that graduates indicated were not being adequately taught in their accounting degree programme. Against this backdrop of skills convergence, the greatest areas of skills divergence from the employers’ perspective were those of team skills, leadership potential, verbal communication and the interpersonal skills of graduates.     

Problem-solving styles of accounting students: Are expectations of innovation reasonable?

In response to input from the profession, accounting programs are attempting to increase the innovative problem-solving skills of their students. However, they have done so without data on what the problem-solving styles of their students are, and without an understanding of the capacity for innovation by different problem-solving styles. This study compares the problem-solving styles of accounting students with other business majors and business minors. Results indicate that accounting students are predominantly adaptive in problem-solving style. Statistical analysis shows a significant difference in the problem-solving style of accounting students and other business majors, with other business majors more likely to be innovative. Implications of these findings for changes in the accounting curriculum and for the profession are discussed.     

Student perceptions of the profession and its effect on decisions to major in accounting

Changes in the business environment have created a perceived need for more creative individuals in the accounting profession. This study asserts that to attract these people, we will have to change existing perceptions of the profession. To test this assertion, we examine the relationship between students' inherent creativity, perceptions of the accounting profession, and decisions to major in accounting. We also examine the extent to which experience in an introductory accounting course changed students' perceptions and major choices. Findings indicate that students hold traditional views of the profession and this deters interest. Business and accounting students tend to be less creative than the general university population. Experience in introductory accounting drew less creative students to the major despite changing perceptions toward more modern views. Overall, the results indicate that perceptions of precision and thoroughness in the profession and the heavy work load in the introductory course discouraged creative personalities from pursuing an accounting major.     

The Acquisition of Generic Skills of Culturally-diverse Student Cohorts

The changing nature of higher education and the structure of graduate labour markets have increased emphasis on employability and graduate outcomes. Universities have responded to this changed environment by embedding generic skills in the curriculum. This paper examines the generic skills that students perceived they acquired in their accounting studies in preparation for graduate employment. Given the changed background profiles of students studying accounting degree in Australia, and the employment difficulties they encounter on graduation, the study specifically addresses the perceptions of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The findings demonstrate that, overall, students believed that their accounting course assisted in developing generic skills, while differences in perceptions were identified between different cultural cohorts. The research highlights the need to develop educational practices which embed generic skills development in the curriculum in a way that maximises the opportunities for culturally-diverse student cohorts to enhance their employment outcomes on graduation.     

Who should teach what? Australian perceptions of the roles of universities and practice in the education of professional accountants

This paper addresses the respective roles and responsibilities of universities and practitioners in educating professional accountants. The issues are explored by a review of the literature in accounting and other professions regarding the respective roles of universities and employers in the development of both technical and non-technical knowledge and skills of professionals, particularly accounting practitioners. The literature review suggests that critics of university-based education fail to recognise (a) the changes that have occurred in the roles and responsibilities of accounting practitioners, and (b) the opportunity costs necessarily associated with providing generalist accounting degrees. Universities and employers have comparative advantages for the development of different types of professional skills and knowledge. These insights are extended by way of a series of interviews with Australian accounting practitioners, representatives from professional accounting bodies, recent accounting graduates, and accounting students about their perceptions of the respective responsibilities and roles of universities and employers. Although some interviewees recognised that universities cannot be ‘all things to all people’, there was a tendency to expect universities to have the major responsibility for the development in accounting graduates of both technical and non-technical knowledge and skills. Such perceptions tended to understate the responsibilities and comparative advantage of employers and result in unrealistic expectations about the outcomes of a university education. Employers need to be made more aware of the resource and other limitations associated with university programs and should develop meaningful opportunities for learning and reflection within workplace contexts.     

The first course in accounting: students’ perceptions and their effect on the decision to major in accounting

Little empirical evidence exists regarding students’ perceptions of the first course in accounting and the effect of these perceptions on deciding whether or not to major in accounting. The purpose of this study is to begin examining student perceptions regarding the first accounting course and how those perceptions relate to selection of accounting as a major. The study separately examines initial perceptions and changes in perceptions over the semester for intended accounting and non-accounting majors, and assesses the association of individual accounting instructors with changed student perceptions. We then examine the relationship between perceptual changes, final grades, and individual instructors on decisions to major in accounting. Responses from 331 introductory financial accounting students from two universities indicate that while intended accounting majors perceived the course more favorably than non-accounting majors at the beginning and end of the semester, both groups exhibited relatively positive attitudes toward the course. However, these attitudes were similarly less favorable by the end of the course for both groups. We also found evidence of the important role individual instructors play regarding changing student perceptions and selection of accounting as a major. The analyses for selection of accounting as a major indicate that the decision depended on initially intending to major in accounting, performance in the first course, and individual instructors, but not on changes in perception regarding the first course.