Perceptions of generic skill development : international and local accounting students in Australia

In recent times, the growing emphasis on graduate outcomes has led to a consensus amongst educators, employers and other stakeholders that a better mix of technical and generic skills should be fostered in accounting students. Given the increased importance placed on generic skill acquisition, this study seeks to gain an understanding of undergraduate accounting students’ perceptions of the skills they feel they acquire during their studies. The increased diversity of the background of students studying accounting in Australia has also raised concerns about the acquisition of generic skills among various student cohorts. Using a case study of accounting students studying at an Australian university, a logistic regression model is applied to determine differences in perceptions of generic skill development between two student cohorts (local and international). The findings indicate that while both groups perceived their degree studies contributed to the development of generic skills, international students thought that their studies aided the development of generic skills more so than local students. Furthermore, it appears that some skills appear to be more successfully integrated into the curriculum than others.