A Multivariate Analysis of the General Skills Developed in Accounting Higher Education

Abstract

The literature shows important and crucial changes in higher education, motivated by the rapid advance of technology and a constantly changing organizational environment. This study aims to analyze final-year students' and accounting lecturers' perceptions about the development of general skills in first-cycle courses in order to improve skills taught in accounting courses to facilitate students' entry into the labour market. A questionnaire-based survey was applied to 345 final-year students and 155 accounting lecturers at Portuguese higher education institutions. The answers obtained were statistically analyzed by factor analysis by the principal component method. The results of two individual factor analyses indicated differences in the factors that represent the skills perceived as developed throughout the academic course: students indicated teamwork and pressure tolerance as the factors that explain the most developed skills, while accounting lecturers considered problem-solving as the most developed dimension. These results are very important for accounting educators in Portugal to complement their teaching, along with other learning strategies present in the literature review.