Foundational Competency Improvement Needs for Employability of Accounting Education Students in North-East Nigeria (Published)
The study examined the foundational competency improvement needs for employment of undergraduate accounting education students in North-east, Nigeria, using descriptive survey research design involving a structured questionnaire. The sample of the study comprised 52 Accounting educators, 156 accountants in industries, and 281 final year undergraduate accounting education students. The questionnaire had two different rating scales. The first rating scale was used to collect data relating to the level of importance of the skills and the second rating scale was used to collect data on the extent to which the skills were consciously developed during their studies. This questionnaire was validated and pilot tested, and a reliability coefficient of 0.79 was obtained. The data were collected by the researcher assisted by ten trained research assistants. The data were analyzed using Table of frequencies, mean scores, standard deviation, and Improvement Needs Index to answer the two research questions, while the two hypotheses were tested using independent sample t. test. The study disclosed that all the 52 foundational skills were adjudged by accounting educators and accountants in industries as very important for inclusion in the curriculum of undergraduate accounting education students in North- east, Nigeria. Undergraduate accounting education students were deficient in four of the six subscales of foundational skills. Based on the findings, it was recommended that accounting educators should include the areas of deficiencies identified in this study in undergraduate curriculum of accounting education and focus attention on developing those skills.
Keywords: Accounting Education, Accounting Skills, Employability Skills, foundational skills, skill improvement needs
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ACCOUNTING EDUCATION (Published)
Coinciding with the globalization the importance of the English language has increased, a question came up regarding the accounting explanation language and doesit affect thestudent’s understandability. So, in order to improve the accounting students performance and understandability of the accounting courses, this research have been done on 100 accounting and finance students at Ahila University to measure the effect of studying in native or non-native languages on student’s performance and how that will affect the student’s understanding of the accounting courses. The research found that Accounting students understand better when they were taught by their native language and that will improve their grades. In addition, the study find that the Level of student’s English language proficiency affect their performance in Accounting courses as long as all accounting courses are English books. Improving accounting students has been an important issue and to improve their understandability the result of this study should be taken into consideration. As instructors should explain the accounting course materials by student’s native language to have a better and more educated accountants to be able to understand accounting concepts better and meet the labor market requirements
Keywords: Accounting Education, English Language, Students performance