Professional Skills and Capabilities of Accounting Graduates: The New Zealand Expectation Gap?

Abstract

Much has been written about teaching and learning deficiencies in accounting education. Universities have grappled with the challenge and developed a number of strategies to address the concerns raised. Many of the recommended strategies for addressing these deficiencies have included a focus on the development of professional capabilities and skills. This paper reports on a study which has identified the capabilities which are considered to be the most important for successful practice in accountancy during the first years after graduation and identified the extent to which New Zealand universities have focused on these in the delivery of their study programmes. Most attempts to measure the nature and extent of change to accountancy degree programmes have collected data from current or graduating students or from the university itself. This study instead collected feedback from accountancy graduates employed in public practice with three to five years post graduation professional experience and from their workplace supervisors. This paper reports on the results of the graduate feedback, provides a useful insight into where progress has been made and identifies where further improvement is necessary.

Keywords:

• Professional capabilities
• teaching and learning quality
• accounting education reforms

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Geoff Scott and staff at the UTS Quality Development Unit for their support and assistance with this project, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful advice.

Notes

See, for example, summaries of this research in Scott (1996) and Foley (2000).