Accounting Students' IT Application Skills over a 10-year Period

Gregory Stoner

Accounting Education, 2009, vol. 18, issue 1, 7-31

Abstract: This paper reports on the changing nature of a range of information technology (IT) application skills that students declare on entering an accounting degree over the period from 1996 to 2006. Accounting educators need to be aware of the IT skills students bring with them to university because of the implications this has for learning and teaching within the discipline and the importance of both general and specific IT skills within the practice and craft of accounting. Additionally, IT skills constitute a significant element within the portfolio of employability skills that are increasingly demanded by employers and emphasized within the overall Higher Education (HE) agenda. The analysis of students' reported IT application skills on entry to university, across a range of the most relevant areas of IT use in accounting, suggest that their skills have continued to improve over time. However, there are significant differential patterns of change through the years and within cohorts. The paper addresses the generalizability of these findings and discusses the implications of these factors for accounting educators, including the importance of recognising the differences that are potentially masked by the general increase in skills; the need for further research into the changing nature, and implications, of the gender gap in entrants' IT application skills; and the low levels of entrants' spreadsheet and database skills that are a cause for concern.

Keywords: Education; information technology (IT); computer applications; skills; computer literacy; gender/sex (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1080/09639280802532224

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