A survey on student satisfaction with cooperative accounting education based on CPA firm internships

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how cooperative accounting education (CAE) programs jointly activated by an accounting institution and its cooperating CPA firms impact the students’ satisfaction with practising what they have learned in work placement.Design/methodology/approachA structured equation model is constructed to describe the explanatory framework of the student satisfaction with CAE programs based on the CPA firm internship. The paper also presents a survey of 192 accounting interns at 14 local CPA firms in South China, in order to test how satisfied the intern students are with the cooperative education program.FindingsThe results prove that student interns are quite satisfied with the arrangements and learning effects of CAE programs, but they are not much related to improvement of their socialization skills. The findings reveal that the CPA firm culture has considerable influence on the effectiveness of CAE; the student command of accounting expertise has moderate impacts on it; and university curriculum makes no significant differences to student satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThe structural framework established in this study synthesizes the impacts of accounting expertise, CPA firm culture and university curriculum on student satisfaction with CAE programs could be implicative to further research on cooperative education or work integrated learning.Practical implicationsMy study highlights the importance of student satisfaction with CAE programs based on the CPA firm internship. An effective CAE program requires the involvements of the universities, the students and the CPA firms. In particular, the firm culture greatly contributes to the student satisfaction with the program.Originality/valueThis paper points out the student satisfaction as a crucial perspective to evaluation the effects of CAE programs. This paper also synthesizes from prior literature a theoretical framework for investigating the effects of CAE programs based CPA firm internship.