Factors Influencing Students' Choice of an Accounting Major in Australia

Abstract

This study explores the influential factors that affect business students' selection of a major course of study at the tertiary level in Australian universities. The present research examined the differences in the impact that various influential factors had on the decision to major in accounting among students studying at Australian universities. The sample was collected from a survey of undergraduate and graduate students studying at two large Australian universities in November 2005. A total of 46 domestic and 68 international students participated in this study. The results showed that domestic students possessed higher levels of creativity and were more likely to select majors in subjects other than accounting. Conversely, it was found that although Chinese students possessed relatively lower levels of creativity, they were more likely to major in accounting when studying in Australia. Another finding from this study was that Asian students other than Chinese perceived the accounting profession as a career with less procedural characteristics so they were more likely to major in accounting compared to domestic Australian students who regarded the profession as one that had greater procedural characteristics. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the differences in students' creativity and procedural images of the accounting profession among domestic and international students and of how these factors influenced their choice of an accounting major.

Keywords:

• Accounting professions
• major choice
• vocational expectation factor
• cognitive style
• perception

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully appreciate Professor Richard M. S. Wilson, Editor of Accounting Education: an international journal, for his enormous assistance in publishing this paper. We also wish to acknowledge the countless comments received on an earlier draft from three anonymous reviewers. This research project was funded by the Center for Academic Development and Cooperation in Hiroshima Shudo University, Japan.