1e Employers' Perception

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Persidangan Pembangunan Pelajar Peringkat Kebangsaan 2008

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 22-23Oktober 2008

1

Employers’ Perception Towards The Preparedness Of Uum Accounting Practicum

Students To Enter The Job Market.

Nur Azliani Haniza binti Che Pak

College Of Business

Universiti Utara Malaysia

04-9283755/012-6953448

[email protected]

Abstract

Knowledge and skills needed by the accountant are constantly changing and complex to meet the demand of the

industry, so the challenge for the experienced accounting professional become complicated (French and Coppage,

2000). In order to prepare students with the skills needed by the industry, institutes of higher education have

introduced “industrial training” or “practicum training” as a component in most of the academic programmes.

Therefore, this study is carried out to gain the employers’ perception towards the level of preparedness of practicum

students, in term of skills and knowledge, to enter the job market. This research concentrates on all the employers in

Malaysia that provide training or practicum places for UUM accounting students. Based on the data gathered from

the Practicum Center UUM, there are 529 practicum companies attached with Faculty of Accountancy. The overall

result shows that all the variables gain the mean value above 4.00. It proved that the employers perceived that all the

accounting practicum students are excellence in preparing themselves to enter the workplace. From the study, the

first ranking is the students’ appearance where it gains the highest mean value (4.72). The second highest variable as

perceived by the employer is the attitude of the students in term of discipline at work with the mean value of 4.30,

followed by the leadership style of the students with the mean value of 4.19. The fourth rank of the variable is the

skills of the students (4.13) and the last rank is the ability of the students to analyze which scored mean value of 4.04.

From the study we can conclude that the transition from student of higher education to employee is often difficult.

Thus, accounting education should provide students with the requisite set of skills that future employer seek,

including strong communication, quantitative analysis, interpersonal and intellectual skills (Reinstein & Bayou,1997). Practicum training is important since it will help students plan and manage the experience they gain to

develop the realistic expectations about fundamental aspects of employment in public accounting. This study also

proved that practicum is a good platform to students in order to prepare themselves before they become employee.

Keywords: Student Development, Skills, Industrial Training

1. Introduction

Knowledge and skills needed by the

accountant are constantly changing and complex to

meet the demand of the industry, so the challenge for

the experienced accounting professional becomecomplicated (French and Coppage, 2000). This

situation gives great challenges for the education

process to revise and update the curriculum to

produce graduates with the skills and knowledge

needed as entry level employees.

However, there have been major concerns

raised that all is not well in accounting education by

some of these reports: Accounting Education Change

Commission (AECC) (1990) and Albrecht and Sack

(2000). Amongst a number of issues raised in these

reports was the need for curriculum change to be

relevant with the changing role of the accounting

profession, to one that make accounting graduates

more marketable and relevance to the profession.

A study done by Institute of Management

Accountant (IMA) and the Financial ExecutivesInstitute in the year 1993 shows that universities are

doing a less that adequate job of preparing people for

entry level work in accounting. The study also

suggest that university accounting programs must be

restructured to respond to the needs of the corporate

customer and thereby improve the educational

preparation of entry level accountant( Hartman and

Ruhl, 1996).

One of the efforts done by Ministry of

Higher Education in order to prepare students with





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the skills needed by the industry is introducing

industrial training or practicum training as a

component in most of the academic programmes. The

purpose of practicum training is to provide

opportunity to the students to apply theoretical

knowledge obtained in academic programs to a

practical work experience. Besides, practicum

training also aim to provides the opportunity for

students to experience the application of classroom

knowledge in work setting in order to prepare them

for their careers. Many students who do practicum

training feel it to be one of their most valuable and

rewarding experiences because they are able to see

themselves making a real difference in the lives of the

individuals they are serving.

Thus, this paper seeks to investigate employers’ perception towards the level of

preparedness of accounting practicum students to

enter the job market. Perhaps the finding of this

study will provide inputs to faculty in order to revise

the existing accounting curriculum.

2. Significance of the study

The findings perhaps could highlight the

need for giving magnitude to the current skills and

knowledge aspects of accounting in the education

systems in Malaysia in general and in UUM as

specific.

Besides, empirical evidence provided by this

research could also help to instill awareness towards

the profession; therefore, it is hope that the result

would give impact to the seriousness of the issueamong the accounting graduates.

Theoretically, the findings could contribute

advance knowledge to the academic world related to

the curriculum studies where the result could be used

as reference for further study in the area of education.

3. Objective of the study

The main objective of the study is to determine the

perception of the employers towards the preparedness

of practicum students to enter the job market.

4. Literature Review

4.1 Development of students’ skills and knowledge

The industry nowadays is very challenging.

In order to meet the industry’s needs, students must

possess process skills beyond just fixing problems,

rather, they must anticipate what might happen and

search continuously for more creative solutions.

Students must comes with a package which is fully

equipped with the skills that enable them to think for

themselves, to be self-initiating, self modifying and

self directing (Costa, 2005). This situation demands

that the curriculum must be open and flexible enough

to accommodate these new perspectives. Costa

(2005), in his paper has identified five pervasive

themes or patterns that should be included in a

thought-full curriculum, which are ‘learning to think’,

‘thinking to learn’, ‘thinking together’, ‘thinking

about our own thoughtfulness’ and ‘thinking big’.

In the globalization era today, students

should been taught to build more thoughtful world as

an interdependent learning community, where all

people are continually searching for ways to trust

each other, to learn together and to grow towards

greater intelligence. Realizing the importance to

produce graduates that can be marketable to the

industry, most of the universities have changed the

method of learning from teacher-centered to the

student-centered. Student-centered learning is an

approach to education that focusing on the needs of the students, rather than those of others involved in

the educational process, such as educators and

administrators. The main idea behind this method is

that learning is most meaningful when topics are

relevant to the students’ lives, needs, and interests

and when the students themselves are actively

engaged in creating, understanding and connecting to

knowledge (McCombs and Whistler, 1997).

According to Panitz (2006), educators who

embrace student centered learning encourage students

to take responsibility for their own learning; involve

students directly in the discovery of knowledge; use

materials that challenge students to use their priorknowledge to create new and deeper understanding of

concepts; embrace the concept that learning is

enhanced through social activities such as cooperative

learning, problem based learning, etc; use school,

work, home, and community as resources for

collaborative learning; involve all constituents in

contributing to student learning (faculty, students,

staff, alumni, employers, family and others); and use

activities beyond the classroom to enhance the

learning experience.

The effectiveness of student centered

teaching has been proven since students who were

taught with the student-centered approach were

shown to gain confidence in themselves. Apart from

that, their motivation level also shows an increment.

The students also retain more material for longer

periods of time. This is because via the student

centered approach, the students themselves are

responsible for the success of a lesson and therefore

they tend to feel more responsible for the success of

their own learning (Piccinin, 2000).





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4.2 Skills and knowledge for entry level accountants.

As accountants they need to equip

themselves with certain skills and knowledge. Much

research has been conducted in search of definitive of

accounting skills. The perceptions of CPAs,

accounting educators, students, and Fortune 500

executives have been studied, whereby the majority

have ranked communication as the most important

skill in accounting (Blanthorne, Bhamornsiri &

Guinn, 2005). Association of Graduate Recruiters in

the UK provided insight as to the 12 key career skills

for the future and it’s clearly identifies the attributes,

attitudes, skills and capabilities that all accountants

must develop (Carroll ,2005). The skills are self

awareness, exploring opportunities, action planning,

networking, matching and decision making,

negotiation, political awareness, coping with

uncertainty, development focus, transfer skills, self

confidence, and self promotion.

Result from the study done by Ismail, et.al,(2001), revealed that 20 skills considered important

by employers were the ability to perform assigned

tasks, initiative, teamwork, computer literacy,

problem solving, personal attitudinal, motivation,

written communication (English), interpersonal skills,

oral communication (English), leadership and general

knowledge to perform job.

The study by Tanyel et.al (1999) also

support and confirm that the prospective employers

perceived responsibility and accountability, ethical

values, interpersonal skills, oral communications,

time management and punctuality, the ability to work

in teams, and decision making and analytical abilityare the most important tributes to be possessed by

newly hired graduates.

Accordingly, the study by Linda, and Van,

(1995) indicate that employers seeking accountants

are placing more emphasis on computer literacy,

professional certification, and good communication

skills. In simple word, in light of the complexity and

rapid changes in today’s business environment,

successful accountants must possess not only

business, accounting and auditing knowledge, but

also the interpersonal and communication skills, as

well as intellectual and creative problem solving

skills.

5.0 Method

This research concentrates on all the

employers in Malaysia that provide training or

practicum places for UUM accounting students. The

instrument used is the employer confidential report

(laporan sulit penyelia majikan latihan industri) for

semester A052. This report is collected from all the

practicum employers as they are requested to send it

back to the faculty one week after the students finish

their practicum training. There are five variables

tested, which are (1) the attitude of the students in

term of discipline at work; (2) the ability of the

students to analyze; (3) the leadership style of the

students; (4) the skills of the students such as

language, computer software, skill of decision

making and etc; and (5) the students’ appearance. In

order to meet the objective, mean analysis will be

used.

6.0 Findings and Discussion

The overall result shows that all the

variables gain the mean value above 4.00. It proved

that the employers perceived that all the accounting

practicum students are excellence in preparing

themselves to enter the workplace. From the study,

the first ranking is the students’ appearance where itgains the highest mean value (4.72). The second

highest variable as perceived by the employer is the

attitude of the students in term of discipline at work

with the mean value of 4.30, followed by the

leadership style of the students with the mean value

of 4.19. The fourth rank of the variable is the skills

of the students (4.13) and the last rank is the ability of

the students to analyze which scored mean value of

4.04.

From the study we can conclude that the

transition from student of higher education to

employee is often difficult. Thus, accounting

education should provide students with the requisiteset of skills that future employer seek, including

strong communication, quantitative analysis,

interpersonal and intellectual skills (Reinstein &

Bayou, 1997). As stated by Aly & Islam (2003),

students who enter the accounting programs are

expected to be exposed to the world of change

management, new organizational environment,

leadership and communication, performance

measurement, building intellectual capital,

shareholder wealth involving cross sections of people,

building strategic alliances for global competition.

Students should be given the opportunity to

receive realistic job previews as an integral part of

their higher education and early employment process

(Philips & Crain, 1996). This situation requires the

undergraduate curriculum to include the practicum

training as a compulsory subject. Practicum training

is important since it will help students plan and

manage the experience they gain to develop the

realistic expectations about fundamental aspects of

employment in public accounting. This study also

proved that practicum is a good platform to students





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in order to prepare themselves before they become

employee.

Apart from that, students should prepare

themselves to occupy positions in the public, private,

local, national and world body. Thus, it is important

to encouraged students to participate in

students/professional organizations such as

accounting clubs and academic honour organizations,

where from there, students, through exposure to

accounting professional, can gain insight into the

basic duties and responsibilities of the profession

(Philips & Crain, 1996).

The accounting education programme also

should be redesigned to emphasize critical skills and

to incorporate global issues such as the social-

behavior, legal, politic phenomena within the

business environment and their impact on accounting

(Reinstein & Bayou, 1997). The accounting lecturer

should explore new teaching methods and techniques,

such as simulation, case studies, written assignments,

and seminars. Additionally, accounting faculty wasencouraged to become more actively involved in the

practice of public accounting and in the business

community in general through seminars, internship,

and joint conferences. The interaction between

faculty and firm recruiters was also should be

emphasized in the hope that faculty would be made

aware of the skills that accounting graduates should

possess in order to be effective in their chosen careers

(Philips & Crain, 1996). The recruiters were also

encouraged to be more forthcoming with respect to

information about early employment experiences.

In conclusion, although the results of the

present study appear somewhat as predicted, moreeffort should be done by the faculty and also the

industry to ensure the improvement of accounting

students in the future.

7.0 Limitations and Recommendations for future

research

The first limitation the study is it has

difficulty in sourcing for other research on the area of

the study. The study that has been carried out in this

area is sparse and this has somewhat restricted a

thorough review. Thus, more studies on the similar

area should be carried out to gain more in-depth

understanding and knowledge.

The other limitation is this study only

discusses five (5) variables using the instrument that

was developed by the Practicum Center UUM. Thus,

future research should be done using different

instrument and also stress on other variables that may

influence the students’ performance. Future research

should also take into consideration the individual

dimension in each group of the independent variable.

In fact, each dimension in this study can be proposed

to be the independent variable in future research.

The most important issue to be noted is that

the findings of the study are only applicable within

the next few years. Thus, similar studies could be

conducted from time to time to keep track of the

changes of the factors that will influence the need of

skills for practicum students in order to join the job

market.

While the respondents of this study are

employers of the practicum students, it is

recommended that future research should focus on the

students’ perception. Thus, the comparison can be

made. Consequently, the gap between what

employers need and what the students could provide

can be reduced.

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Documents

1e Employers' Perception