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An ALTC Discipline-based initiative. Accounting skills for future graduates in Australia: More than Numbers. Here is the background to the project.
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An ALTC Discipline-based initiative Accounting skills for future graduates in Australia: More than Numbers
Here is the background to the project • ALTC (Carrick) scoping study “Business as Usual” identified a particular problem in Accounting driven by many factors including a large unmet demand for accountants. • Report available at www.altc.edu.au
The approach taken in the project • A collaborative, sector-wide investigation into the changing skill set required of professional accounting graduates over the next decade. Team members: • Phil Hancock, University of WA, • Bryan Howieson, University of Adelaide, • Marie Kavanagh, University of Southern Queensland, • Jenny Kent, Charles Sturt University, • Irene Tempone, Swinburne University
The approach used in the project. • Action research • Semi structured interviews • Nvivo analysis
Research questions • RQ1: How are stakeholders defining non-technical skills? • RQ2: What non technical skills do stakeholders expect of accounting graduates at recruitment, in training and in ongoing accounting employment? • RQ3: How are stakeholders defining technical skills? • RQ4: Are stakeholders satisfied that accounting graduates are presenting with the required skills and attributes for the profession? • RQ5: Whose responsibility do stakeholders perceive it is to assist accounting graduates to acquire the necessary technical and non-technical skills?
Non-technical skills • Communication, • Initiative and enterprise • Planning and organising • Problem solving • Self management • Teamwork • Technological competence
Comment from a stakeholder • But having said that, you need to contextualise it because grades certainly aren’t everything and our recruitment and screening process, as the same for the chartered firms, looks also at a variety of other attributes and skills that we are interested in, particularly communication skills, team building skills, team work skills, those types of softer skills which you can’t see in a set of grades.
Importance of the non-technical skills • Communication 1 • Problem solving 2 • Teamwork 3 • Self-management 4 • Life-long learning 5 • Initiative and enterprise 6 • Planning and organising 7 • Ability to deal with diversity 8 • Technology 9
In relation to each of the nine non-technical skills on a scale of 1(not at all)- 5(excellent) how well do you consider you are able todevelop (blue), assess (red) these skills in your students?