IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/accted/v14y2005i4p367-381.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Irish secondary students' perceptions of the work of an accountant and the accounting profession

Author

Listed:
  • Marann Byrne
  • Pauline Willis

Abstract

Research shows that the perceptions that people hold are an important influence on career decisions. This study examines Irish secondary school students' perceptions of the work of an accountant and the accounting profession. Students are found to hold a traditional view of the profession considering it to be boring, definite, precise and compliance driven. Students who are studying accounting in school have less negative views than those not studying the subject. Females view accounting as more definite, precise and compliance driven than males. Students' perceptions are influenced by the study of the subject at school, the factual media and teachers. They believe that society holds the profession in high esteem but lower than some other professions. These findings suggest that if the profession is to be successful in attracting students who have the skills and attributes to become effective accountants, it must seek to influence students' perceptions of accounting by providing them with a realistic portrayal of the work of an accountant.

Suggested Citation

  • Marann Byrne & Pauline Willis, 2005. "Irish secondary students' perceptions of the work of an accountant and the accounting profession," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 367-381.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:14:y:2005:i:4:p:367-381
    DOI: 10.1080/06939280500346003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/06939280500346003
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/06939280500346003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Satoshi Sugahara & Gregory Boland, 2006. "Perceptions of the certified public accountants by accounting and non-accounting tertiary students in Japan," Asian Review of Accounting, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 14(1), pages 149-167, July.
    2. McPhail, Ken & Paisey, Catriona & Paisey, Nicholas J., 2010. "Class, social deprivation and accounting education in Scottish schools: Implications for the reproduction of the accounting profession and practice," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 31-50.
    3. Stephen Coetzee & Ruanda Oberholzer, 2010. "South African Career Guidance Counsellors' and Mathematics Teachers' Perception of the Accounting Profession," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 457-472.
    4. Pekdemir, Isil & Pekdemir, Recep, 2010. "High School Teachers’ Perceptions and Opinions on Professional Accountants: The Turkey Case," MPRA Paper 29865, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Arquero, José Luis & Fernández-Polvillo, Carmen & Hassall, Trevor & Joyce, John, 2017. "Relationships between communication apprehension, ambiguity tolerance and learning styles in accounting students," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 13-24.
    6. Judy Brown, 2010. "Accounting and visual cultural studies: potentialities, challenges and prospects," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(4), pages 482-505, May.
    7. Irena Jindrichovska & Dana Kubickova, 2016. "Perception of Accountants and Accounting Profession in two Countries: Different Terms of Economy and Culture," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(3), pages 60-79.
    8. Amondarain, Josune & Aldazabal, M. Edurne & Espinosa-Pike, Marcela, 2023. "Gender differences in the auditing stereotype and their influence on the intention to enter the profession," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    9. Tracey McDowall & Beverley Jackling, 2010. "Attitudes towards the accounting profession: an Australian perspective," Asian Review of Accounting, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(1), pages 30-49, May.
    10. Karlsson, Per & Noela, Massa, 2022. "Beliefs influencing students’ career choices in Sweden and reasons for not choosing the accounting profession," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    11. Aldónio Ferreira & Andrijani Santoso, 2008. "Do students’ perceptions matter? A study of the effect of students’ perceptions on academic performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(2), pages 209-231, June.
    12. Ștefan BUNEA, 2017. "The Contribution Of Accounting Disciplines To Developing Professional And Personal Skills," SEA - Practical Application of Science, Romanian Foundation for Business Intelligence, Editorial Department, issue 15, pages 443-450, December.
    13. Ariela Caglio & Mara Cameran, 2017. "Is it Shameful to be an Accountant? GenMe Perception(s) of Accountants' Ethics," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, March.
    14. repec:hal:journl:hal-03964950 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Satoshi Sugahara & Osamu Kurihara & Gregory Boland, 2006. "Japanese Secondary School Teachers' Perceptions of the Accounting Profession," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 405-418.
    16. Beverley Jackling & Claude Calero, 2006. "Influences on Undergraduate Students' Intentions to become Qualified Accountants: Evidence from Australia," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 419-438.
    17. Aldo Pavan & Isabella Fadda, 2017. "Increasing the value of accounting research: An Italian perspective," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(2), pages 29-42.
    18. Paul Tongkomah Saayir & Leticia Bosu, 2021. "Students’ Choice of Business Studies as Programme of study: The Case of Senior High Schools in the Wa Municipality," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(3), pages 491-498, March.
    19. Sugahara, Satoshi & Cilloni, Andrea, 2021. "Mediation effect of students’ perception of accounting on the relationship between game-based learning and learning approaches," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:14:y:2005:i:4:p:367-381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAED20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.