ACCOUNTING STUDENTS' CHOICE TO PURSUE A CAREER IN THE INDUSTRY OR ACADEMICS: LESSONS FROM SELECTED PRIVATE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES
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Career choice is one of the major decisions that a student has to make in tertiary institutions. This
choice also cuts across a number of disciplines in business, social sciences and pure sciences. At the
final year stage, a student of accounting consciously or sub-consciously makes up his/her mind on the
kind of career to pursue after graduation. Three distinct areas from where an accounting student
makes a choice are to work in the industry, gain academic relevance or to diversify completely from
accounting. This makes it worthwhile to empirically examine the career choice of accounting students
in tertiary institutions and the extent of difference to pursue a career in the industry or academics.
These are the dominant issues in this study and they stem from the dearth in the Nigerian literature on
studies seeking to assess the career choice of accounting students. With the aid of a survey
instrument (questionnaire), the objectives of this study were actualized. Copies of the questionnaire
were made and the same administered to one hundred and fifty (150) accounting final year students in
two Private Universities in the South-West of Nigeria. The questionnaires were distributed equally
across the two universities. Data was analyzed using factor analysis and t-test. Factor analysis was
used to decipher the factors influencing the choice of students to pursue a career in the industry or
academics. T-test was employed to examine whether a difference exists in the career choice of the
accounting students based on gender. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17
was used to analyze the data collected from the respondents. The outcome that there is a wide gap
between the choice of students to pursue an accounting career in the industry rather than in
academics makes this study recommend that there could be more incentives to encourage accounting
students to balance their career by engaging with academics. The accounting professional bodies
could also encourage students to pursue postgraduate studies in accounting by sponsoring them.
These steps could reduce the gap between accountants in the industry and academics.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), HF Commerce, HF5601 Accounting