Differences in accounting students' perceptions of their development of generic skills and emotional intelligence in a heterogeneous classroom

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.