Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of an accounting project in acquiring accounting knowledge and professional skills

This paper focuses on the usefulness of an accounting project that was implemented in order to encourage students to integrate their knowledge of different modules at a third year level, to enable them to acquire accounting knowledge and professional skills, to work in groups, and to be active participants in the learning process.This paper extends Stainbank’s 2005 study by presenting and discussing students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the project in enhancing a broad range of skills and abilities for three independent years. Analyses of the results reveal significant differences in students’ perceptions as to the enhancement of these skills by the project. Gender and language differences were also found and the not English speaking students rated the value of the project statistically significantly higher than the English speaking students.When the responses were analysed according to the five groups of skills as outlined by the International Federation of Accountants’ International Education Standard IES 3, the students ranked „personal skills’ as the highest benefit of the project. The language analysis indicates the importance of this learning intervention to enhance the skills outlined in this paper and IES 3.