Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Vocational Competences Acquired by Students Enrolled in Accounting Master’s Programmes in Romania
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
- The expectations of accounting education stakeholders: are there gaps among their perspectives?
- Accounting education in Romania
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Research Design
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- It does not take into account educators’ perceptions of their contribution to the development of vocational competences, but rather the importance they attach to these competences (therefore, we think it is very likely that educators projected a much more optimistic perception);
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- It does not consider students’ perceptions on how a master’s programme education contributed to the development of their vocational competences.
3.2. Data Collection
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- The curriculum: to identify the disciplines and their distribution over the two years of study;
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- The syllabus for each discipline: to identify the objectives, competences, content elements and evaluation requirements;
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- The protocols between the universities and CECCAR: to identify the disciplines that offer exemption from the membership exam;
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- IFAC International Education Standards.
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- Identification of the disciplines taught under the 12 master’s programmes;
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- Score of 1 for disciplines included in the curriculum and score of 0 for disciplines missing from the curriculum;
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. Analysis of Master’s Programme Convergence and Integration Considering IFAC and CECCAR Requirements
Implementing professional ethics standards and values in decision-making and performing complex professional tasks independently or in group at work.
Identifying roles and responsibilities in a multidisciplinary team and implementing connexion and efficient working techniques within the team.(Syllabus, CPNANI)
Performing complex professional tasks in nonlinear environments in professional autonomy and independence.
Assuming responsibility for various roles within professional bodies and companies.
Acquiring abilities to self-evaluate one’s own professional competence level and finding real opportunities capable of bringing added value to one’s own professional development.(Syllabus, MCAC)
...interaction frequency and earnestness during the seminary classes shall be recorded.
...oral presentation quality, teamwork efficiency, ethical values and involvement in debates shall be evaluated.
4.2. Education Constraint Gap Analysis
- Communication skills
Under the bachelor’s programme, evaluations were almost exclusively individual and in writing. Under the master’s programme, the continuous and even the final evaluations consisted of team projects, presentations, debates. Even for written papers, there were requirements aiming at the ability to communicate in writing on a particular topic and to support one’s own opinions. I have appreciated the discussions and the possibility to suggest various debate and study topics. Students could contribute to the lecture content and the working method(student #04, accounting educator at a high school).
The difference in terms of communication between the bachelor’s and the master’s programmes was very big. I attended the bachelor’s cycle in person, and the master’s cycle online. Educators under the bachelor’s programme were rarely interested in communication with us or among us. They were very concerned with providing the large amount of information and with making sure they covered the whole curriculum. I had difficulties at the beginning of the master’s programme, as I am of technical nature and do not communicate easily with the others. I feel comfortable in the world of numbers(student #16, junior accountant).
Students come with poor communication skills and poor interest in developing them. One of the reasons is the student selection process. This process is based on the classical accountant stereotype i.e., a person good with numbers. Even the websites of certain universities display such messages encouraging youth good with numbers to choose a career in accounting. I teach international accounting and when I tell my students we will not use numbers in our class they become nervous and distrustful. My discipline is intended to develop their level of accounting culture and not their numerical skills(educator #05, international accounting).
I could notice that if I, as educator, show creativity to better communicate with the students they will do the same. Some of them have even surprised me. They have taken initiative and set up plays and even written poems related to the topics under discussion. It is true that they had difficulties in the beginning, but when permanently exposed to communication you end up communicating(educator #01, creative accounting).
I teach in-depth consolidation accounting. This is a very technical discipline and somehow more difficult. Students feel much more comfortable about solving a problem than about providing qualitative explanations related to their tasks and results obtained(educator #03, consolidation accounting).
- Group-working skills
Most often we decide on the team we want to join. We discuss the tasks; we agree on them and conduct them. Usually there is no negotiation on tasks in the group. I admit that in real life we cannot always choose the team we want to join and that we must adapt to various types of personalities. This is a limitation of group working(student #07, junior accountant).
I am rather withdrawn, and I admit that online activities helped me communicate more easily. I was glad to work in teams and without the educator’s presence. I was less stressed, and I could get involved efficiently. What I most appreciated in our discussions was the fact that there were never wrong answers, but only different points of view. Nobody was reprimanded for reasoning errors; we were just learning together. This made me feel comfortable and willing to further participate to activities(student #18, junior accountant).
I set up the teams to remove the temptation of covering each other. In real life, they will have to work with colleagues with various tempers and behaviours. They will not be able to choose whom to work with. Others will choose for them. This is a lesson they must learn already in school. I appreciate their cooperation despite their discomfort in the beginning, and their integration ultimately(educator #05, international accounting).
I let them choose the team they will join. The most frequent choice criterion is friendship or the results of previous experiences. What’s important for me is for them to feel comfortable, which is the only way to make them participate. The worst students will have the chance to learn from the best. The good students will have the chance to be validated by the rest of the team. What matters is the output of the team, and the rest is a consequence of the negotiation between its members. Everybody will have to assume the output(educator #09, audit).
- Problem-solving skills
The integrated approach is used for lectures delivered at ACCA and a series of universities in Europe and the USA where I have taught. Students are used to have exam topics they can solve using information from several lectures. I make topics for which students cannot find the answer in the lectures. They must build on their knowledge to find and argue solutions. Their answer involves the integration of information from various lectures and from mandatory and optional bibliography. This type of evaluation is stressful for students, as they are traditionally used to reproduce information and not to build on it(educator #04, managerial accounting).
Creative accounting is a discipline that allows me develop analyses integrating accounting, taxation, audit, financial analysis, corporate governance, and other notions(educator #01, creative accounting).
I sometimes expose the students to such situations. I change a figure, I add a new task, I tell them that one member of the team is absent, but they still have to make the presentation, etc. In such situations students experience a high level of stress but must adapt(educator #05, international accounting).
The situations encountered at school were more like simulations. They did not involve accountability for the decisions made. Responsibilities were simulated and shared with the classmates. Real life is different. I assume the consequences of any action(student #21, senior accountant).
I am junior accountant. I make no decisions; I just implement what others decide for me. I feel safe, but I realize this situation is not aimed at motivating me to progress professionally(student #03, junior accountant).
- Pressure and time management
School has tested me on pressure and time management rather than helped me to be more efficient at it. I have developed my own method of pressure management overt time. I could feel no support in this regard at the job either. If I were to compare, school activities seemed to be more stressful than job activities. I feel in control at the job. Things are often unpredictable at school(student #21, senior accountant).
I think I knew better how to manage time and pressure during the master’s than during the bachelor’s cycle. My job experience is likely to have helped. Everything is planned, monitored, and assessed there(student #09, junior accountant).
- Information technology
We put too much focus on technique. I think we should make better use of students’ time. Part of the homework should force them look for useful information. As compared with the students from foreign universities I could meet, Romanian students are often coddled. They have no homework or, when they have, it consists in replicating cases debated in the class(educator #02, IT).
- Other skills, values and knowledge
4.3. Features of the Educational Process
… deep revision of the curriculum plan, revision of the syllabus, rethinking of the student evaluation methods, establishing a supportive administrative system for the teaching staff, and, last but not least, training for the teaching staff(management accounting educator).
There is no need to revise the curriculum, but rather to adopt a consistent policy on students’ performance evaluation focused on crosscutting competences. These competences are poorly represented in the syllabi and are not explained. There is a need of training for educators to acquire creative teaching and evaluation methods. I think it is necessary to impose the use of a minimum level of creative tools in the teaching process(international accounting educator).
I would certainly prefer a hybrid system for the master’s program. The online component is very useful and should not be abandoned when we come back on campus... I couldn’t imagine two years ago that I would be able to show them specific applications or that I would ask them to apply specific procedures using Excel. While on campus we used to have technical difficulties in using the computers available in the laboratories, we were losing a lot of time to ensure interaction with each student, the students could not work all at the same time, we did not have access to a series of internet resources while in classroom, etc.,(IT educator).
I would increase the number of hours for the disciplines I teach not to deliver more knowledge, but for the students to have more time available to work on projects (with my assistance) and thus develop these vocational competences. We should also have an asynchronous learning component (without educator’s presence) where students’ feedback and involvement should contribute to the development of their competences(IT educator).
I would remove the ‘common core’ disciplines, as well as the disciplines (or content) resuming the discipline matters studied under the bachelor’s programmes, and I would adapt each discipline to the labour market realities and develop the vocational competence component(taxation educator).
Increasing the number of internship hours...(consolidation accounting educator)
Group working, 4-semester internship, inviting practitioners with decent remuneration...(audit educator).
Involving students in joint projects conducted by university and businesses or professionals (provision of solutions to practical issues in accounting, audit, etc.)(financial reporting educator).
(1) mandatory inclusion of individual and group projects with presentation in front of the classmates for presentation analysis and immediate feedback (mandatory contribution to the feedback);
(2) mandatory inclusion of an exam consisting of a case study focused on critical thinking and out of the box solution;
(3) at least 2 reviews of literature related to the specific (reference/fundamental) disciplines of the master’s programme(corporate governance educator).
(1) Inclusion of a mandatory group working complex project for each discipline.
(2) Insistent requirements for students to read and introduce relevant articles from the accounting, audit, taxation, governance literature...(integrated reporting educator).
Recommendation to students to keep updated on the content of the rules...advice for more individual study, proposal of real-life practical examples...(creative accounting educator).
Flexibility in evaluation methods (evaluation based on projects or reviewed articles, and not only on the participation to seminars and the final examination)(economic and financial analysis educator).
I recommend the participation to different debates/presentations within companies... I recommend the setting up of hubs to confirm students’ vocational expectations...(accounting expertise educator).
(1) Approach of up-to-date topics (time management),
(2) Personal development projects (integrative approach, self-assessment),
(3) Vocational competence projects (oral communication, professional communication, creativity, critical thinking, professional writing, team role playing etc.)(scientific research methodology educator).
- (1)
- The revision of the curriculum plans to remove redundances, and the insertion of necessary courses (such as professional communication, professional writing, creative and critical thinking, etc.) and their adaptation to labour market needs;
- (2)
- The revision of the discipline content to ensure consistency, and approaching the content in a way meant to contribute to the development of vocational competences in addition to technical competences;
- (3)
- Finding teaching tools approved by the teaching staff that prove to be efficient for developing vocational competences;
- (4)
- Finding continuous and final evaluation tools that also enable vocational competence evaluation and having them approved by the teaching staff;
- (5)
- Life-long learning for educators regarding the teaching and evaluation tools they can use (an important contribution in this respect could come from DPPD (the teaching staff training departments within universities));
- (6)
- Developing projects or programmes together with practitioners and companies;
- (7)
- Developing educators’ and students’ IT skills;
- (8)
- Developing educators’ and students’ research skills, etc.
4.4. What Do the Employers Think?
Young employees are shy, hesitant, and unable to communicate with unknown people. Professional communication is different from communication with family members and close friends. We therefore provide communication training for the new employees to develop these skills. I am such a trainer myself and I could see how difficult it is for certain people to develop a substantial and articulated discussion with colleagues even on general topics(empl. #07, partner).
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- University courses are too technical and are not always connected to the business reality;
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- Professional communication depends on terminology knowledge (this terminology includes legal, economic, financial, accounting and management terms), and without appropriate professional language, professional communication efficiency will be poor.
It is not relevant for me that young graduates know accounting formulas if they do not know in what context such formulas are recorded. Accounting should be learnt in the context of a business, transaction, or event. It should be related to the behaviour of those involved in the activities of the reporting entities. What I can notice is a lower level of technical competences for the employees having graduated during the pandemic. To compensate for these shortcomings, we organise internal trainings for these employees and provide the master’s programme students with the possibility of internship in our company(empl. #05, partner).
Without generalising, I could notice that many young employees are unable to communicate personally or professionally, are unable to write or read a professional email, do not know when and how to reply to an email, etc. In my opinion such competences should also be developed at university(empl. #03, partner).
Employees in our company do not compete against each other and this philosophy is beneficial for team efficiency. Everyone knows that they will have to provide support to any colleague asking for it and that himself or herself can ask for help. It is everyone’s interest that activities should be performed timely and efficiently. It is true that behaviours may differ depending on the personal attitude towards the role each one plays in the company. Some people tend to be self-sufficient, but if they perform their tasks everything will be fine. Other people are enterprising and are prone to a higher effort they assume(empl. #11, partner).
I can notice during the trainings we provide to the young employees that they haste to answer the questions they are asked, they do not consult with their colleagues although they know they could do it, they are afraid to answer if they are uncertain of the right answer, they use an unconvincing voice when they speak, they do not assume what they say and put the blame on the knowledge they received at school(empl. #2, partner).
In our company, we often organize local or network contests for the young employee teams. The purpose of these contests is to develop the efficiency of teamwork, the communication in multinational and multicultural teams, idea generation, creativity expression(empl. #9, partner).
In my opinion, more fragmented the professional activities, less chances for the employees dealing with those fragments to develop such competences. An employee dealing fully with a client will develop such knowledge of client’s business to allow him or her be critical and creative and have a holistic approach of the client’s business and accounts(empl. #6, partner).
Our company invests large amounts of money to train young employees. In recent years graduates seeking a job have unrealistic expectations from the employers. They come without relevant practical experience and sometimes with unsatisfactory knowledge. We compensate for university education shortcomings with internal training programmes. Some of the employees cannot see that the internal training we provide is one of the job-related advantages. They limit the benefits to the salary received every month. Moreover, we have noticed a decrease in the willingness to put personal effort at the beginning of the career in recent years (and in particular during the pandemic). After completing their tasks, certain employees do not ask for other tasks. They stay in the comfort zone. Moreover, certain young employees are ready to quit the job even for a 20 euro extra on the salary, in spite of an excellent working environment and despite the company’s willingness to invest in their professional and personal development(empl. #04, partner).
…without generalising, I could notice that young employees are very motivated to learn. They tend to work extra hours, to ask for additional tasks earlier than necessary to learn new things quicklier. They are encouraged by team flexibility and free spirit in our practice. However, our policy is different. Young employees receive tasks gradually, are assisted, evaluated, advised, helped by seniors. As soon as they become autonomous for certain activities, they will be involved in others. It is essential for us to avoid overloading with tasks the employees under full process of training and integrating into our company. Respecting one’s personal time is also very important to us. We refute overtime and prefer reviewing deadlines or reallocating tasks to maintain the work-life balance(empl. #08, partner)
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Master’s Programme | Code | University |
---|---|---|
Accounting, auditing and management information systems | CAIG | University of Economic Studies, Bucharest (ASE) |
Accounting, controlling and expertise | CCE | University of Economic Studies, Bucharest (ASE) |
Accounting and taxation of the economic entities | CFEE | University of Economic Studies, Bucharest (ASE) |
International accounting | CI | University of Economic Studies, Bucharest (ASE) |
National and international audit concepts and practice | CPANI | University of Economic Studies, Bucharest (ASE) |
Forensic accounting and auditing | ECA | Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) |
Accounting, auditing and controlling | MCAC | Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) |
Forensic accounting and auditing | CEA | Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (UAIC) |
Accounting, business analysis and valuation | CDE | Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (UAIC) |
Financial auditing | AFC | West University of Timișoara (UVT) |
Forensic accounting and valuation | ECEA | West University of Timișoara (UVT) |
Accounting, controlling and governance | CCG | West University of Timișoara (UVT) |
Assessment of Student Competence | Ranking of Student Competence | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vocational Skills | Students’ Mean I | Educators’ Mean II | Difference in Mean Score III = I − II (GAP) | Students’ Rank IV | Educators’ Rank V | Difference in Ranking VI = IV − V (GAP) |
Communication skills | ||||||
Verbally present and defend points of view and outcomes of their own work to colleagues, clients and superiors | 3.04 | 3.17 | −0.13 | 9 | 5 | +4 |
Present and defend points of view and outcomes of their own work, in writing, to colleagues, clients and superiors | 3.17 | 3.08 | +0.09 | 5 | =7 | −2 |
Use of visual aids in presentations | 3.13 | 2.65 | +0.84 | 7 | =14 | −7 |
Listen effectively to gain information and understand opposing points of view | 3.14 | 3.02 | +0.12 | 6 | 9 | −3 |
Critically read written works, making judgements on their relevance and value | 2.80 | 2.95 | −0.15 | 16 | 10 | +6 |
Group-working skills | ||||||
Work with others in teams | 3.36 | 3.31 | +0.05 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Organise and delegate tasks | 2.76 | 2.53 | +0.23 | 17 | 16 | +1 |
Assume leadership positions when necessary | 2.70 | 2.55 | +0.15 | 18 | 15 | +3 |
Problem-solving skills | ||||||
Identify and solve unstructured problems | 2.33 | 3.08 | −0.75 | 19 | 7 | +12 |
Find creative solutions | 2.84 | 3.06 | −0.22 | 15 | 8 | +7 |
Integrate multidisciplinary knowledge to solve problems | 3.02 | 3.36 | −0.34 | 10 | 1 | +9 |
Perform critical analysis | 2.92 | 3.25 | −0.33 | 13 | 3 | +10 |
Pressure and time management | ||||||
Organise workloads to meet conflicting demands and unexpected requirements | 2.80 | 2.78 | +0.02 | =16 | 13 | +3 |
Organise workloads to recognise and meet tight, strict and coinciding deadlines | 3.47 | 2.87 | +0.60 | 1 | 12 | −11 |
Select and assign priorities within workloads | 2.86 | 2.65 | +0.21 | 14 | 14 | 0 |
Information technology | ||||||
Use relevant software | 2.96 | 2.70 | +0.26 | 11 | 13 | −2 |
Knowledge of information sources | 3.11 | 3.23 | −0.12 | 8 | 4 | +4 |
Other skills, values and knowledge | ||||||
Ability to develop methods of effective learning | 2.94 | 2.91 | 0.03 | 12 | 11 | +1 |
Awareness of social and ethical responsibilities | 3.23 | 3.14 | +0.09 | 3 | 6 | −3 |
Have knowledge of the accounting profession | 3.18 | 2.53 | +0.65 | 4 | =16 | −12 |
Overall mean of the 20 vocational skills | 3.11 | 2.86 | +0.25 | - | - | - |
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Bunea, Ș.; Guinea, F.-A. Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Vocational Competences Acquired by Students Enrolled in Accounting Master’s Programmes in Romania. Sustainability 2023, 15, 7406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097406
Bunea Ș, Guinea F-A. Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Vocational Competences Acquired by Students Enrolled in Accounting Master’s Programmes in Romania. Sustainability. 2023; 15(9):7406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097406
Chicago/Turabian StyleBunea, Ștefan, and Flavius-Andrei Guinea. 2023. "Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Vocational Competences Acquired by Students Enrolled in Accounting Master’s Programmes in Romania" Sustainability 15, no. 9: 7406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097406