Accounting Students' Expectations and Transition Experiences of Supervised Work Experience

Abstract

Political and economic discourses position employability as a responsibility of higher education, which utilise mechanisms such as supervised work experience (SWE) to embed employability into the undergraduate curriculum. However, sparse investigation of students' contextualised experiences of SWE results in little being known about the mechanisms through which students derive employability benefits from SWE. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of students' expectation and conception of workplace learning on their transition into SWE. Analysis of accounting students' experiences reveal two broad conceptions of workplace learning, the differing impacts of which on transition experience are explored using existing learning transfer perspectives.Students displaying the more common 'technical' conception construct SWE as an opportunity to develop technical, knowledge-based expertise and abilities that prioritise product-based or cognitive learning transfer. Students with an 'experiential' conception were found to construct SWE primarily as an experience through which the development of personal skills and abilities beyond technical expertise are prioritised using process-based or socio-cultural learning transfer. Further data analysis suggests that these two learning transfer approaches have differing impacts on students' employability development which may indicate a need for universities to consider how to develop appropriate student expectations of and approaches to SWE and meaningful support for students' SWE transition.

Psychometric evaluation of the Student Authorship Questionnaire: a confirmatory factor analysis approach

“…This apparent lack of confidence regarding one's subject area may be explained by the pureapplied dimension of Biglan's (1973aBiglan's ( , 1973b topology which finds accounting and psychology at opposite ends of the scale. Accounting is an applied discipline, yet the majority of accounting undergraduates will have had limited or no practical experience in the field (Garcia 2010). Accordingly, this inexperience may lead to a concern among accounting students that their prose will appear weak and unimpressive, creating a reticence to personalise their writing.…”

Developing Accounting Students' Listening Skills: Barriers, Opportunities and an Integrated Stakeholder Approach

“…Advocates of work experience contend that it assists in developing students' communication skills by introducing students to an environment that provides a practical dimension to classroom based learning (Kuh, 1995;Beck and Halim, 2008;Jackling and de Lange, 2009;Paisey and Paisey, 2010). According to Gracia's (2010) analysis of UK accounting students' work experience, these benefits are considerable. This is dependent, however, on Developing Accounting Students' Listening Skills 181 the nature of students' engagement with their work experience.…”

“…Nonetheless, cases of students experiencing isolation, not meeting or seeing their supervisor and being required to spend an inordinate amount of time filing and photocopying warrant employers' attention (Gracia, 2009;. Reports of student anxiety and uncertainty about what work experience will entail also merit attention (Gracia, 2010). Thus, in addition to providing meaningful work experience, the employers' role may extend to presenting to students and describing what the experience will involve and the skills that work experience can develop.…”

“…By contrast, students who approach their work experience with the expectation that it will enhance their rudimentary technical, rather than communication, skills tend to be 'passive recipients of knowledge', who are considerably less engaged in the workplace learning process (Gracia, 2010, p. 61). Gracia (2010) concludes that this cohort of students struggles to assimilate with the work environment, displays a resistance to workplace practices that challenge their basic technical knowledge and do not capitalise on opportunities to develop communication skills.…”

“…As discussed, students' role in developing their listening skills includes recognising the value of listening and using work experience and other non-academic interactions as an opportunity to develop this skill (Gracia, 2010). Employers have an interrelated role in providing work experience that facilitates the development of students' listening and other oral communication skills.…”