Abstract:
Aspiring professional accountants need to develop certain competencies comprising
both technical knowledge and professional skills (also referred to as generic skills),
during their initial professional development (IPD). However, despite interventions to
develop these competencies, there is still a gap between employers' expectations and
graduates' competencies. It has been argued that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) may be
the missing link in the IPD of professional accountants. It has been suggested that
instructors should adopt specific non-traditional pedagogical approaches to develop
professional skills and EQ. The effectiveness of these approaches may, however, be
compromised by the diversity in the classroom. Instructors should take cognisance of
the demographic differences of the individuals within the student group and the impact
of these differences on the development of professional skills and EQ, when selecting
the pedagogical approaches. Instructors should also take cognisance of the interaction
between demographic variables within the demographic groups. This dissertation
explored demographic differences in students' perceptions of the professional skills
developed at the end of their IPD. Statistically significant differences were noted
between different demographic groups of students on whether they have developed
professional skills. This dissertation further explored the differences in EQ between
demographic groups of students. Statistically significant differences were not only
noted in EQ between these demographic groups of students but also within these
demographic groups. Although this dissertation considers South African students, the
results may be of interest to other multicultural and multilingual environments,
particularly environments that have a history of socio-economic inequity and racial
injustice.
