| Abstract: | The public accounting profession has called for enhanced critical thinking skills in accounting graduates. However, critical thinking is a term which does not enjoy a universally-accepted definition. This study attempts to identify the critical thinking competencies essential to success in public accounting, and articulates those competencies to facilitate future research aimed at curricular change to meet the needs of the profession. The findings reveal that the profession uses the term critical thinking to refer to a broad set of competencies which includes both cognitive and non-cognitive attributes, attitudes, and behaviors. These competencies are presented as an operational definition of critical thinking useful to accounting education researchers. |
