Professionals

Accounting Education in the 21st Century:

Survey of Accounting Practitioners

The work performed by accounting graduates is expanding and becoming more complex and more diversified. This survey is part of a study designed to understand better how the work of accounting graduates has changed, and how future accounting education should be changed to help students prepare for work in the rapidly changing business environment. This study is sponsored by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the American Accounting Association (AAA), and the "Big 5" professional service firms. Please respond to each of the questions below, based on your personal experience. If you do not feel that you have enough experience or knowledge to answer any question, just leave that question blank and skip to the next question. Thank you for your time.

Section 1: Your perspective on the changing environment in accounting

How would you describe the rate of change in the accounting profession? For each of the following time periods, click on the circle corresponding to what you see as the rate of change for that period.

	1 No change	2 Little change	3 Moderate change	4 Significant change	5 Dramatic change
1. The first half of the 1980's (1980-1984)
2. The last half of the 1980's (1985-1989)
3. The first half of the 1990's (1990-1994)
4. The last half of the 1990's (1995-1999)
5. The next five years (2000-2004)

Think about the work you did roughly ten years ago (or when you first joined the profession if you have not been working for ten years), the work you are doing now, and the work you expect to be doing in the next five years. Considering the work areas listed below, indicate the five main areas in which you have worked in the last ten years, work now and anticipate working in the next five years. (Select up to five work areas for each time period.)

	6. Ten years ago	7. Now	8. Next five years
Accounting services (A/R, A/P, Payroll, etc.)
Audit and attestation
Cost accounting
E-commerce consulting
Finance
Financial analysis
Financial planning
Financial reporting
General accounting
M&A consulting
Strategic consulting
Systems consulting
Tax compliance
Tax consulting
Treasury
Valuations
Don't know
Other (Specify)
Other (Specify)

Section 2: Your perceptions of the accounting profession

The following questions ask about your perceptions of the accounting profession. Respond to each question by clicking in the appropriate circle.

	(1) Strongly disagree	(2) Somewhat disagree	(3) Neutral	(4) Somewhat agree	(5) Strongly agree	(6) Don't know
9. Working in the accounting/finance area of a business organization is a challenging and rewarding career.
10. Working in the tax area of a CPA firm is a challenging and rewarding career.
11. Working in the audit/assurance services area of a CPA firm is a challenging and rewarding career.
12. Working in the consulting area of a CPA firm is a challenging and rewarding career.
13. Working for a consulting firm is a challenging and rewarding career.
14. Working for an investment banking company is a challenging and rewarding career.
15. Working as a governmental accountant is a challenging and rewarding career.
16. Working in an internal audit area in a large organization is a challenging and rewarding career.
17. Working in a "Big 5" CPA firm is more exciting than working for a smaller, more localized CPA firm.
18. Business periodical rankings of business school programs have had a positive effect on accounting programs.
19. Accounting is a more attractive college major than finance.
20. Accounting is a more attractive college major than information systems.
21. Accounting and information systems should be combined into one college major.
22. Accounting and finance should be combined into one college major.
23. The various business majors (i.e. finance, accounting, strategy, marketing, information systems, etc.) are too isolated from each other.
24. Accounting education is integrated sufficiently with other business disciplines.
25. A Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree title is more valuable than a Masters of Accountancy (Macc) degree for accounting graduates.
26. Accounting education in America's colleges today is keeping up with changes in business.
27. Working as a college professor is challenging and rewarding.

Section 3: Relationship between the accounting profession and the academic community

28. Do you believe that there are fewer qualified students majoring in accounting today than five years ago, about the same as five years ago, or more than five years ago? (Click in the appropriate circle.)

Fewer (Answer question 29)
The same (Skip to question 30)
More (Skip to question 30)

29. If you believe there are fewer qualified students majoring in accounting today, what do you believe are the two main reasons? (If you believe there are more or the same number of qualified students majoring in accounting today, please skip this question and go to question 30.)

	Most important reason	Next most important reason
Starting salaries are lower than in other business disciplines such as information systems.
Accounting is perceived as less challenging and rewarding than other fields of study.
Accounting is not perceived as having the growth opportunities that other disciplines have.
Accounting is perceived as being backward looking while information systems and finance are forward looking.
Accountants are not as respected as other professionals.
Students don't understand how challenging and rewarding the accounting profession really is.
University professors don't do a good job of getting students excited about accounting.
Other (Please specify)

30. What are the two most important steps corporations and accounting firms could take to attract more high quality students into the accounting profession?

	Most important step	Next most important step
Pay higher starting salaries
Have an increased presence on campuses
Change the name of the profession
Do more advertising
Better promote their array of services to students
Work closer with key professors
Build supplier alliances with key schools
Work with high school students
Other (Please specify)

31. How well is accounting education today meeting the needs and expectations of accounting professionals?

Very poorly (Answer question 32)
Poorly (Answer question 32)
Well (Skip to question 33)
Very well (Skip to question 33)

32. What are the two most important reasons that accounting education is not meeting the changing needs and expectations of professional accountants? (Answer this question only if you answered "Very poorly" or "Poorly" above.)

	Most important reason	Next most important reason
Professors are too pre-occupied with research to keep their curricula up to date.
Teaching efforts are not adequately rewarded at universities.
Universities have insufficient budgets to make significant changes.
Faculty have little chance to establish business contacts outside the school, resulting in a failure to stay current with business developments and changes.
Students enrolling in accounting classes today don't have the basic skills needed to learn at a fast enough pace.
There is currently too much reliance on lecture and memorization of facts in accounting education.
Learning to learn is not emphasized enough in universities today.
Other (Please specify)

33. Thinking about the purpose of accounting education in the future, which of the following should accounting programs focus most on preparing students to be? (please check one)

Auditors
Business advisors
Business decision makers
Financial consultants
Information experts
Preparers of financial information
Tax advisors
Technology managers/advisors
Other (Please specify)

Section 4: Content knowledge

One challenge facing accounting educators is to determine how much of the limited classroom time available to undergraduate accounting majors should be spent studying various subjects. Using the 1-4 scale below, describe how important you think each of the following subjects is by indicating how many courses should be devoted to it.

	Not important (no courses)	Somewhat important (part of a course)	Moderately important (one college course)	Very important (more than one course)
34. Accounting research methods
35. Auditing/Assurance services
36. Business law
37. Business strategy
38. Economics
39. Electronic commerce
40. Ethics
41. Finance
42. Financial accounting
43. Global/International business
44. Information systems
45. Managerial accounting
46. Marketing
47. Operations/Supply-chain management
48. Organizational behavior/Human resource management
49. Statistics/Quantitative methods
50. Taxes
51. Technology topics
52. Other (Please specify)
53. Other (Please specify)

54. Additional comments about content knowledge, college education and an accounting career

Section 5: Professional skills

We would like to better understand how important you believe a number of professional skills are for new accounting graduates. Categorize the list of skills below using the following 1 to 5 scale:

We would like to better understand how important you believe a number of professional skills are for new accounting graduates. Based on the 1 to 5 scale below, please prioritize the following skills in terms of how much class time should be spent developing each one.

(1) No priority (Not important)

(2) Low priority (Important, but can be developed best on the job)

(3) Middle priority (Moderately important: plan out-of-class activities explicitly focused on development)

(4) High priority (Very important: dedicate both in-class and out-of-class time to developing, even if some content learning has to be sacrificed)

(5) Top priority (Extremely important: dedicate entire classes dedicate to developing, even if some content cannot be taught at all)

	1 No priority	2 Low priority	3 Middle priority	4 High priority	5 Top priority
55. Analytical/Critical thinking
56. Business Decision Modeling
57. Change-management
58. Computing technology
59. Continuous learning
60. Customer orientation
61. Decision-making
62. Entrepreneurship
63. Foreign language
64. Interpersonal
65. Leadership
66. Measurement
67. Negotiation
68. Oral communication
69. Professional demeanor
70. Project-management
71. Research
72. Resource-management
73. Risk analysis
74. Salesmanship
75. Teamwork
76. Written communication
77. Other skills (Please specify)
78. Other skills (Please specify)

79. Additional comments about professional skill development and an accounting career.

Section 6: Technological skills

Think of the kinds of technology skills you believe new accounting hires should have. For each technology topic below, indicate whether you believe it is a skill that is: (1) Not important for new hires to possess; (2) Nice to know, but not critical; or (3) Critical

Technology Topic	(1) Not important	(2) Nice to know	(3) Critical
80. Communication software (e.g. Outlook)
81. Computer hardware
82. Database software (e.g. Access)
83. Electronic commerce
84. File & directory management
85. Graphics software (e.g. Adobe)
86. HTML programming
87. Intra/Extranets
88. Other operating systems
89. Presentation software (e.g. Power Point)
90. Programming languages
91. Spreadsheet software (e.g. Excel)
92. Technology security & controls
93. Technology terminology
94. Windows
95. Word processing software (e.g. Word)
96. World-Wide Web searching
97. Computer operations management
98. Information systems planning & auditing
99. Project management
100. Systems analysis
101. Technology management & budgeting
102. Other (Please specify)
103. Other (Please specify)

Section 7: Educational experiences outside the classroom

While most college time is spent in the classroom, there are a number of outside activities that can enhance student learning experiences. Assuming you have 20 points to allocate among the following learning activities (the more points you allocate, the higher you believe the educational value to be), how would you allocate your points among the following? (Type the number of points you would assign to each activity in the corresponding box.)

Activity	Points Allocated
104. 3-4 month internships with companies
105. Field studies (Consulting projects with organizations)
106. Foreign business trips
107. On-line (Internet) classes
108. Service-learning (Learning by performing service)
109. Shadowing professionals
110. Other (Please specify)
Total	Total should equal 20

On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1=Very ineffective and 7=Very effective, rate how effective each of the following would be as a way for business professionals and academics to work together to improve accounting education.

	1 (Very ineffective)	2	3	4	5	6	7 (Very effective)
111. Have business professionals make in-class presentations to students
112. Have business professionals become active participants in academic organizations such as the American Accounting Association
113. Have business professionals serve as "in-residence visiting professors" at academic institutions
114. Have business professionals serve on advisory boards of accounting programs
115. Have academics visit or become familiar with the offices and work environments of accounting and/or finance professionals
116. Have academics become active participants in professional organizations such as the IMA or AICPA
117. Have academics serve internships or residencies in professional organizations
118. Have academics consult with business organizations

119. Which of the following best describes how your clients, customers, management and other non-accountants think of you:

Auditor
Business advisor
Business decision maker
Financial consultant
Information expert
Preparer of financial information
Strategy advisor
Tax advisor
Technology manager/advisor
Don't know
Other (Please specify)

120. Which of the following best describes your perception of new accounting graduates being hired into your firm?

The quality of new hires is lower than it was 10 years ago.
The quality of new hires is about the same as it was 10 years ago.
The quality of new hires is better than it was 10 years ago.
I don't have an adequate basis to make this judgement.

Indicate whether you expect the demand for accounting graduates who work in the following types of jobs to decrease, stay about the same, or increase in the future.

	Decrease	Stay about the same	Increase
121. Internal audit
122. Corporate accounting/finance
123. Tax
124. Audit and assurance
125. Business consulting and advising
126. Planning and strategy

Section 8: Your education

127. Which of the following best describes your undergraduate college major?

Accounting
Business (Other than Accounting, Information Systems and Finance)
Computer Science
Finance
Humanities
Information Systems
Other (Please specify)

128. Which of the following best describes your graduate educational experience? (Check all that apply.)

None (Bachelor's degree was the highest degree I earned)
Completed Masters of Business Administration
Completed Masters of Accountancy or Taxation
Completed other masters degree (Please specify)
Completed Ph.D.
Completed J. D. (Law degree)
Other (Please specify)

129. How long has it been since you received your last college degree?

Less than 3 years
3 to 6 years
7 to 10 years
11 to 15 years
more than 15 years

130. If you could prepare for your professional career by starting college over again today, which of the following would you be most likely to do? (Check one.)

Earn a bachelors degree in something other than accounting, then stop
Earn a bachelors degree in accounting, then stop
Earn a Masters of Business (MBA) Degree
Earn a Masters of Accountancy Degree (150 hours)
Earn a Masters of Information Systems Degree
Earn a Masters Degree in something else (Please specify)
Earn a Ph.D.
Earn a J. D. (Law Degree)
Other (Please specify)

131. Additional comments about advanced degrees and an accounting career

Personal and demographic information

The following information is more personal, but will allow us to compare the results by respondent profiles. Remember all information you provide is entirely anonymous.

132. Your current age:

20-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70

133. In what type of firm do you currently work?

in an accounting/finance position in a corporation
in a "Big 5" professional services firm
in a governmental position
in an internal auditing position
in education
in a non-accounting position
in a non "Big 5" accounting or professional services firm
Other (Please specify)

134. In which category does your current annual salary fall?

Less than $50,000
Between $50,000 and $100,000
Between $100,001 and $150,000
Between $150,001 and $200,000
Between $200,001 and $300,000
Over $300,000

135. Gender

Male
Female

136. Race

Caucasian
African American
Asian American
Hispanic American
Native American
Other (Please specify)

To complete this questionnaire, click once on the "submit" button below. Thank you for your participation!

(This form is for illustration purposes only and can not be submitted.)