Perceptions and priorities of diverse groups of first year accounting students with regards to generic skills/ communication skills

The survey reported here was designed to investigate how accounting students perceived the relative importance of different named skills in the light of their career plans, and to compare the results with the perceptions of other students and of accounting employers. Ranking questions forced students to deliberate over their choices. Overall, just under a third of the accounting students ranked communication skills as the most important. However, ranking varied considerably according to students' degree programs, intended careers, and language backgrounds. In general, the perceptions of native speakers of English tended to be more in alignment with the priorities of employers. The survey also showed that over 70% of all students ranked speaking over writing. Also, explanation was generally seen as the primary function of communication, as opposed to persuasion, a skill required in strategic communication and for the negotiation of outcomes. In sum, our rescarch shows that the perceptions of the accounting students differed from those of non-accounting students, and that the perceptions of identifiable subgroups are unaligned with real-life career needs.