Celebrating 20 Years of Publication of Accounting Education: an international journal: 1992–2011

Abstract

This paper describes the background to the establishment of Accounting Education: an international journal, as well as an outline of its distinctive characteristics, including the international focus of the journal both in relation to the composition of its Editorial Boards and its authorship since its launch in 1992. A thematic analysis of papers for the second decade of the journal is incorporated, together with insights as to the future directions in accounting education. As the 20-year milestone of the journal was reached Professor Richard M. S. Wilson completed his term of office as founding Editor, and a new Editor took over. The paper recognises Professor Wilson's efforts in establishing an international journal devoted to publishing accounting education research relevant to practitioners, academics, trainers, students, researchers and professional bodies.

Keywords:

• Accounting education research
• research themes and approaches
• international focus

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Emeritus Professor Richard M. S. Wilson (Editor-in-Chief) in providing background information on the establishment of the journal and assisting in collection of data related to the composition of the Editorial Board over the 20 years of the journal's existence.

The authors also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Matthew Cannon, Managing Editor at Routledge Journals, in providing information on the full-text downloads from Taylor & Francis Online.

Finally, we wish to acknowledge the constructive feedback provided by the BAFA 2012 Accounting Education SIG conference participants.

Notes

The British Accounting Association (BAA) is now known as the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA).

Over the 20 years there were 43 papers that had author representation from more than one country (of a total of 397 papers), representing 10.8% of total papers published.

Although several attempts have been made to establish a dedicated accounting education journal in Australia, there has not been support from international publishers for these proposals.

The UK ABS Journal Quality Guide ranks journals as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 4*, with 4* being the ‘best’.

To clarify, despite using statistical analysis, papers were labelled ‘questionnaire’ when this comprised their primary source of data collection. Conversely, papers where the data were collected via non-questionnaire methods yet employed statistical analysis were labelled ‘statistical analysis of data’.

In 2011 Accounting Education: an international journal was accessed for full-text downloads in 84 countries. The journal received 26,156 full-text downloads from Taylor & Francis Online in 2011 plus 30,643 from EBSCO databases, a total of 56,799 downloads. This is a substantial increase compared with downloads for 2006, which totalled 28,349 (personal communication with Matthew Cannon, Managing Editor, 17 May 2011).

At the time of writing the Editor has indicated that AE is in the process of moving towards online management of manuscripts.

Longitudinal research is defined as research in which: data are collected for each item or variable for two or more time periods; the subjects or cases analysed are the same or comparable from one period to the next; and the analysis involves comparison of data between or among periods (Menard, 1991).

This type of study utilises different groups of people who differ in the variable of interest, but share other characteristics, such as socio-economic status, educational background, and ethnicity.