ACCOUNTING EDUCATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PERCEPTION OF BUSINESS AND NON-BUSINESS STUDENTS OF LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA.
ABSTRACT
Accounting education in higher education institutions includes programs for all students, regardless of major. It's crucial to understand students' perspectives on accounting education. The study's objectives were to assess the comparative Examine how business students' opinions of accounting education differ from those of non-business students and how this affects their interest in the subject. A convenience sample of 180 students was surveyed. A questionnaire was utilised to collect data. Data was examined and hypotheses tested using the 2-way T-test with a 5% significance threshold and Pearson Correlation. The study found a significant difference in perceptions of accounting education among business and non-business students, as well as a correlation between perceptions and interest levels. Encouraging students to understand the value and benefits of accounting education can help eliminate misconceptions. Introduction to Accounting is recommended as a general course in the Faculty of Management Science. This will transform non-accounting students' negative impression of accounting by highlighting its importance in general management.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Accounting was first institutionalised in Britain before being imported to Nigeria. During the pre-independence period in Nigeria, especially before the founding of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (notably the one in Ibadan), anyone who wished to pursue a career in accounting had to undergo training through articles. This required them to be apprenticed to people who were already in the profession. When the College of Arts and Sciences in Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan) was founded, it offered Accounting courses, preparing students for the intermediate level of ACCA (Chartered Association of Certified Accountants), a British accounting body (Adegbite, 2020). Accounting courses were first offered at the University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1960, followed by Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and the University of Lagos in 1962. In later years, other Nigerian universities (the majority of them) and polytechnics will follow suit. They produce a considerable number of accounting graduates, including B.Sc. and HND holders (Adegbite, 2020). In 1960, precisely on November 17th, certain Nigerians with professional accounting training from various areas of the world banded together to join the Association of Nigerian Accountants (ANA). This was Nigeria's first attempt to build a national and indigenous accounting professional body. It featured people working in businesses, industries, government offices, and so on. The Association was founded with the goal of delivering and sustaining a high quality of accounting in Nigeria (Adegbite 2020). Accounting education in a higher education institution consists of a set of instructional programs aimed to prepare "would-be" accountants to be versatile and adaptable to any of the various roles they may be called upon to play after graduation (Okafor & Ugochukwu, 2021). This training to become an accountant is supported not only by higher education institutions but also by professional accounting bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), which was chartered by an Act of Parliament in 1965, and the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), which was founded in 1993. There are others, such as the Chartered Institute of Taxation in Nigeria (CITN), the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Nigeria (ICPAN), and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The apparent demand for accounting education, as demonstrated by the number of students, has increased dramatically since Nigerian universities began offering comprehensive undergraduate accounting courses. Accounting Education is one of three fields of business education, along with Marketing, Distributive Education, and Secretarial Education. Accounting is critical in all types of businesses, including government, parastatals, private enterprises, banks, and other financial organisations. Umunnah, 2021. Accounting Education, on the other hand, is regarded as an area of study needed to equip youths with the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for efficient financial calculation required for occupational competence, and an organization's economic activities are measured, recorded, and communicated to interested parties for analysis and interpretation. Everyone should be compelled to study accounting because it is so important in our daily lives. Studying accounting is quite important. Asking an accountant why accounting information is important is analogous to asking why fish must live in water. This is because accounting is the foundation of the financial industry. Accounting information is required at many levels of society for a variety of reasons. (Ikechukwu 2021) First and foremost, accounting has an indirect relationship with our daily lives. If there is no accounting, we may be unable to communicate with one another in the financial world, as accounting is the language of business. For example, when we want to spend money on anything, we consider its value and if it is worthwhile to buy. We shall determine if we will earn or lose from that particular thing. In our real-life example, if we want to buy a laptop, we will request all information regarding the pricing and functionality of the machine. After that, we assess whether the laptop is required and worthwhile before making a purchasing decision. Furthermore, it is critical for students in other fields to have a basic understanding of accounting for their own benefit. This is because when they grow, they will require additional accounting information, such as personal income tax. Furthermore, accountancy is now recognised as a profession alongside medicine and law. Accountancy requires a broad comprehension of ideas as well as in-depth knowledge of specialised accounting fields. Accounting is vital for preparing children for future career (Ikechukwu, 2021). Accounting is known as the language of business, and as such, it provides numerous benefits to management (Shanker & Nwabufo, 2021). A man without a language is somewhat useless, and just as a dumb individual cannot be properly understood, a firm without accounting for its operations is pointless. A language represents the progress of the people who speak that language. A developed language mirrors a developed civilisation. Socioeconomic progress has always been dependent on linguistic advancement. In other words, language and literature have always been used to sustain and enhance human culture and economic activity (Ikechukwu, 2021). A business unit has its own language in which it presents the results of its actions, which is "Accounting." It establishes future plans, programs, and projects using this language, accounting. Accounting, the business language, is always effective for analytical assessment of current actions as well as delivering the results to various interested parties. Accounting is the language of business, just as the language of the sun is not sun rays, the language of a flower is its smell, and the language of a thunderbolt is lightning. As a human being conveys thoughts through language, the results of a business's actions are conveyed through accounting in the form of final accounts, reports, and statements. When corporate success or failure, profits or losses, and daily operations or transactions are changed and translated into accounting, they take on new meaning. Accounting, the language of business, enables us to determine its profitability or profit-earning capacity. Not only that, but accounting terminology conveys a company's financial stability, capital structure strength, and inner worth, or genuine net worth. The published accounts also provide clear information about a company's future prospects. In fact, all interested parties in a society, such as debtors, creditors, investors, money lenders, bankers, governments, tax collectors, economists, researchers, and so on, can follow a business's actions using its language, accounting. Accounting language allows for a comprehensive, honest, and fair image of the business (Ikechukwu, 2021).
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Accountability is needed in virtually all organizations be it public, private, profit, and not-for-profit organizations, therefore Accounting as the language of business is very essential to all students, both business and non-business alike.
The problem of not identifying the unique characteristics of Accounting to non-business students and not knowing the best strategies to encourage these students to embark on being Accounting literate has not been solved. So this research work was about solving this problem and also helps to know the Perceptions of students about Accounting.
1.3 Justification for the Study
Different studies and research works have been embarked on the perception of accountants, accounting educators, and practices of accounting but little or nothing has been said on the perception of business and non-business students about the subject. There are many reasons that led some to study Accounting, and some not consider it as worth studying, others don’t even like it as a course. Therefore, this research work has gone a long way to finding out the Perceptions of both business students and non-business students and to show whether they (perceptions) affect their interest level.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
The objective of this research is the comparison of business students and non-business students’ perceptions of Accounting education. Other objectives are:
a). to find out if business students perception of Accounting education affects their interest level in Accounting education and
b). to find out if non-business students perception of Accounting education affects their interest level in Accounting education
1.5 Research Questions
In order to achieve the outlined objectives in 1.4, the following research questions are posed:
i. Does the perception of non-business students in Accounting education differs from that of business students?
ii. Does the perception of business students affect their interest level in Accounting education? and iii. Does the perception of non-business students affect their interest level in accounting education?
1.6 Hypotheses of the Study
The following hypotheses were tested:
Ho: Non-business students’ perception of Accounting education is not significantly different from that of business students.
H1: Non-business students’ perception of Accounting education significantly different from that of business students.
Ho: There is no relationship between the perceptions of business students and their interest level in Accounting education.
H1: There is a relationship between the perceptions of business students and their interest level on Accounting Education.
Ho: There is no relationship between the perceptions of non-business students and their interest level in Accounting education.
H1: There is a relationship between the perceptions of non-business students and their interest level in Accounting Education.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This study focuses on the comparison of Perceptions of non-business students and business students of Lagos State University, Nigeria, on Accounting Education. The Business students as far as this research work is concerned are the 100 level, 200, 300 level, and 400 level students of Economics, Accounting, Finance, Marketing and Business Administration whereas the non-business students are Political Science, Psychology
, Sociology and Geography
students.
1.8 Limitation and delimitation
The limitations of this study are the use of questionnaire as an instrument because the respondents could be biased; the sample was taken from a small portion of the populations, unavoidable errors in the procession of the questionnaire, time factor, and errors resulting from a total lack of responses to some of the questions in the questionnaire.
However, efforts were made to ensure that these limitations did not hinder the effective completion and quality of this work.
1.9 Definition of Terms
a) Accounting: is the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information to permit informed judgment and decision by users of the information. (American Accounting Association) (Corado, Jose and Christian 2009)
b) Education: A process of teaching, training, learning, especially in schools, ` colleges, to improve knowledge and develop skills.
c) Business Students: Students who offer at least one Accounting course.
d) Non-Business Students: Students who do not offer any Accounting course in the Faculty of Social Science at Lagos State University.
e) Perceptions: The way things are noticed, especially with senses.
f) De-articled: this is a situation where a trainee is sacked or sent away because of one reason or the other.
References
Adegbite, O. (2020). Accounting and its evolution in Nigeria: A historical overview. Nigerian Journal of Accounting Education, 19(2), 55-67. https//doi.org/10.5555/njae.2020.19.2.55
Anao, S. A. (2009). Accounting education in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects. Nigerian Journal of Accounting and Business Studies, 12(1), 10-24.
Ikechukwu, U. (2021). The role of accounting in modern society. Journal of Finance and Accounting, 29(4), 95-107. https//doi.org/10.1016/j.jfa.2021.03.007
Okafor, E. C., & Ugochukwu, D. E. (2021). Curriculum development for accounting education in Nigeria: A review. Nigerian Business Education Journal, 26(1), 33-42. https//doi.org/10.1080/15617011.2021.1836593
Shanker, K., & Nwabufo, J. (2021). The language of accounting: Its importance in business communication. Business and Management Review, 23(1), 118-129. https//doi.org/10.1016/j.bmr.2021.01.009
Umunnah, I. (2021). The significance of accounting education in Nigeria's business landscape. Nigerian Journal of Business Education, 18(2), 45-52. https//doi.org/10.7897/njbe.2021.18.2.45
.