Professional Accounting Education Research Articles

A Critical Analysis of the Pedagogical Approach Employed in an Introductory Course to IFRS

ABSTRACTThis paper, through case analysis employing analytical autoethnography, investigates the pedagogical approach employed in an introductory course to IFRS. This course is part of a professional accounting education program in South Africa. The analysis reflected the teacher-centered orientation of the pedagogy employed, despite warnings in the literature that such an approach may be inappropriate in educating future accounting professionals. The adopted approach has, however, contributed to the success of alumni in the professional accountancy examinations. Further, these graduates' technical proficiency ensures they are almost immediately productive in the real world. Whether these graduates have been provided with an adequate foundation for long-term career success is, however, debatable.

THE ETHICS OF ACCOUNTING STUDENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

It is noted that there have been problems of ethics in the auditing happening in big companies. In addition, the issues of ethics are closely related to the auditing profession. This is believed that they are also related to the independence in doing the profession. In consequence, the auditing profession is expected to have high independency and objectivity because it has the responsibility for providing public service to the society who has trusted them. A professional accounting begins his or her career at accounting school as a student. Therefore, this study intends to answer the question of the ethics among the accounting students. Again, this study intends to examine the ethics of the accounting students by making the comparison among the accounting students of public universities and privates universities, as well as at the Accounting Profession Education Program (PPA). Besides that, it also compares the male and female accounting students. The results show that that gender does not influence the student’s choosing the alternative answers of either B or C, but influences them to choose the alternative of A. Further analysis also indicates that the male students have bigger probability to accept the offer to violate the existing ethics and not to tell anyone than their counterparts. It is due to the condition that the male students take more risks or face challenge in doing their job than their counterparts.

The Factors Affected Toward Profession Options as Accountant Public and Non-Accountant Public Selected

Student's career choice is influenced by various factors including stereotypes and perceptions of a career. Currently, the number of graduates applying to be a public accountant decreased from year to year. This research aims to determine the dominance factors that influence of the public accountant profession and non public accountant selected by accounting department students and profession accounting students.The research sample is determined by purposive sampling and stratified nonproportioned random sampling with criterion that is, the students of accounting department who have finished of study subject Auditing and Professional Accounting Education students (PAE). The data collected is classified as primer data which is obtained by questionnaire distribution and secondary data which is obtained by non behavioral observation. Data processing is conducted by using discriminant analysis technique.The result showed that the most significant factor affecting the selection accounting department students and PAE choose their profession as public accountants and non public accountants are number of job offers and work environment. Significant factors that influence the selection of the public accounting profession and non public accountants when viewed by gender is the type of work and student perceptions about the benefits of the public accountant. The differences become significant factors in influencing selection between accounting department students with PAE students in choosing the profession as a public accountant and public accountant non showed no significant factors that influence the selection of the public accounting profession.

Generic Skills in Audit Education

The academic literature and higher education benchmark statements identify groups of skills that are desirable both for students seeking employment and for employers seeking to recruit students. Professional accounting education pronouncements also stipulate skills that are necessary for an individual to possess in order to act as a competent accountant and auditor. Through a questionnaire survey, this research examines: (i) which of these skills audit and accounting practitioners expect UK universities to teach; (ii) which skills audit and accounting academics believe are important for students to acquire; (iii) which skills audit academics believe that employers require; and (iv) which skills audit academics teach in the UK. Institutional theory is used to develop and interpret this research.

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.

An exploration of the learning approaches of prospective professional accountants in Ireland

In light of the ongoing accounting education change debate, it is surprising that few prior studies have explored student learning issues within professional accounting education. This paper investigates the learning approaches of students preparing for the qualifying examination of a professional accountancy body in Ireland. The findings reveal that strategic learning approaches dominated, as students engaged in learning activities which they considered were most likely to lead to examination success. Variations between the learning approaches based on gender are also considered and the approaches of students who were ultimately successful at the examination were compared to those who failed.

The Australian Society of Accountants' Attempt to Introduce a Qualifying Examination in the Early 1970s: a Case of Form Over Substance

ABSTRACT This paper adds to an historical understanding of the relation between professional practice and higher education by tracing the Australian Society of Accountant's (ASA) struggle to establish a qualifying examination as part of a new programme of professional accounting education in Australia. In 1970, when the ASA introduced a qualifying examination, which it had developed for candidates commencing their accounting courses in 1967, the higher education institutions protested against this action because it required graduates to sit for an examination which they claimed re-ran material already examined in their curricula. They argued that the ASA's proposal imposed on candidates an examination which was grounded neither in accounting practice nor in a common core of accounting knowledge which related to that practice: the form of the examination had taken many years to devise but it lacked substance. Then, in 1976, another type of qualifying examination was introduced. This programme of study emphasised practical applications of accounting and minimised formal academic procedures. It suffered the same fate as its predecessor. The resistance of the higher education institutions to the former and graduates to the latter assured the failure of the ASA's proposals because, at this point, the ASA lacked any strategies to ensure their cooperation.

Professional accountancy education in selected ECSAFA countries: a comparative study

Investigations into professional accountancy education gathered impetus with the publication of The impact of globalisation on accountancy education by Karreman in 2002. This publication provided a comparative analysis of professional accountancy education in 25 countries worldwide, using a model developed for the classification of accountancy education systems. The rationale behind such an exercise is to promote educational exchange and facilitate educational development. The Karreman study only covered two countries in Africa, namely South Africa and Kenya. This study expands the Karreman study by comparing and benchmarking the professional accountancy education programmes in six member countries of the Eastern, Central and Southern African Federation of Accountants (ECSAFA) using the Karreman methodology. This study reports the results of a questionnaire survey to which seven accountancy bodies located in six countries responded. The results of this study revealed mostly agreement with the Karreman model. All the countries could be categorised as developing countries with common law/Roman‐Dutch legal systems and with a strong British influence. Thus similarities in regulation, education and practical experience are expected. The professional bodies tend towards professional selfregulation with low to medium membership regulation. All countries require practical experience before qualifying, and a theoretical approach to the final examination predominates. The study also shows that there is co‐operation in the region.

The identification and discussion of strategies for implementing an IT skills framework in the education of professional accountants

The accountancy and auditing profession operates within an environment that is changing at a rapid pace. It is the responsibility of the profession to ensure that all its members meet the expectations that the users of their services have of them. For professional accountants to remain relevant, they may have to change or adapt the services they offer to their clients. It is the responsibility of professional accountancy bodies to plan for these changes to ensure that members who join the profession possess the required knowledge and skills to be relevant and to remain relevant.One of the key drivers of change has been identified as the advances in information and communication technologies. Information and communication technologies have an impact on the role that accountants play (i.e. what they do), as well as on how they perform this role (i.e. how they do it).The aim of this article is to determine the perceptions of role-players at South African universities to identify strategies that can be employed by universities to ensure that students entering the profession as trainee accountants demonstrate the critical IT skills to be competent accountants in the South African environment.This research shows that there is a real sense within SAICA and academic circles of the importance of students acquiring a relevant set of IT skills through the integration of IT with the professional subjects. However, there is uncertainty about what these IT skills are and how it could be integrated with the professional subjects. It is therefore important that all the role-players understand and demonstrate the urgency to integrate IT skills with the knowledge acquired in the professional subjects to ensure that accounting students acquire the relevant and critical IT skills to be competent accountants within the South African business environment.

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Academics have long expressed concern about the role of professional accountancy education in the constitution of ongoing and future professional accountancy practice and what lies beyond it. The p...

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

This polemical paper by Sikka et al. (this issue) contains a powerful argument, which I endorse, and much engaging rhetoric that to give a ‘true and fair view’ may require amplification and qualifi...

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Sikka et al. (this issue) examine potential inconsistency between what the accounting professional bodies say is important and what they do when it comes to influencing the education of aspiring me...

Professionalisation and UK Accounting Education: Academic and Professional Complicity – A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

This paper offers a Commentary on the study by Sikka et al. (this issue) of accounting and auditing textbooks as representations of accounting education's addressing of ethics, social responsibilit...

Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence

In advancing the ‘professionalizing’ claims, the UK accountancy bodies emphasise that their members have command of practical and theoretical education, engage in ethical conduct, serve the public interest and act in a socially responsible way. However, such claims are routinely problematized by scandals that highlight the highly partisan role of accounting and accountants and failures of accounting education. Rather than undertaking a radical review of accounting education, the professional bodies seek to rebuild confidence in accounting and their jurisdictions by (re)affirming that accounting education is or will be devoted to producing reflective accountants through educational processes focussing on sound education principles, ethics, professional scepticism, lifelong learning opportunities, distinguishing between private and public interest and serving the public interest. These promises presuppose that students on professional accounting courses are exposed to such values. To advance the debate, this paper examines a number of financial accounting, auditing and management accounting books and finds that, beyond a technical and instrumental view of accounting, there is little discussion of theories, principles, ethics, public interest, globalization, scandals or social responsibility to produce socially reflective accountants.

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Sikka et al. (this issue) highlight the disconnection between UK professional accountancy bodies' claims to professional status and the contents of texts used to teach intending professional member...

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Sikka et al. (this issue) raise a number of questions familiar to those involved with the maintenance and development of accounting qualifications. A review of the modern history of corporate failu...

International Education Standards for Professional Accountants (IESs)

The goal of professional accounting education is to produce competent professional accountants capable of making positive contributions over their lifetimes to the profession and society in which they work. International Education Standards (IESs) establish global benchmarks for pre-qualification education and continuing professional development for professional accountants.

A Rejoinder to ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

In response to the nine Commentaries on our original paper (Sikka et al., this issue), this Rejoinder responds to two themes: the politics of professional education, and accounting ethics. We argue that the contents of accounting education are shaped by a particular kind of politics, which privileges technicist rationality. In addition, we pose some questions about the accountancy profession's claims to be advancing ethical conduct by briefly focusing upon its own domestic and foreign interventions.

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Sikka et al. (this issue) have produced what can be appropriately termed a polemic. As a term of disparagement, it means a controversial view intended to stir up trouble. In the positive—and more a...

A Commentary on ‘Professionalizing Claims and the State of UK Professional Accounting Education: Some Evidence’

Examining the effectiveness of claims about improving the behaviour of accountants is most laudable. Unfortunately, Sikka et al. (this issue) start from a false premise and thereby look in the wron...