The Nature and Significance of Listening Skills in Accounting Practice

The Global Challenge for Accounting Education

“…This includes learning not only technical knowledge but also the transferable skills that can actually be transferred from the learning environment to the work environment, or can be transferred from one work situation or context to another (Sin, Reid and Jones, 2012). Students need to master transferable skills such as report writing and interpersonal skills including listening and oral communication (Sin, Reid and Jones, 2012;Stone and Lightbody, 2012), as well as presenting and discussing and defending arguments. Teaching technical material can be imparted using an information processing approach, such as by lectures or tutorials, but learning transferable skills requires a constructivist, situated or experiential approach using a variety of different teaching and learning methods.…”

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

“…The highly-developed listening skills exhibited by experienced accountants are produced Developing Accounting Students' Listening Skills 187 by substantial professional practice, workplace training and ongoing communication with clients and colleagues (Gray and Murray, 2011;Stone and Lightbody, 2012). Their developed listening exemplifies the lifelong learning that providers of accounting programmes and the professional accounting bodies espouse and which is recognised in this proposed approach to developing accounting students' listening skills (see Figure 1).…”

“…Likewise, educators can remind students of the importance of paying attention to a speaker's non-verbal messages in addition to their spoken verbal messages in class discussions. Studies of accountants' listening skills show that successful accountants adroitly interpret the non-verbal information that clients' facial expressions convey (Stone and Lightbody, 2012). Non-verbal information transmits listeners' level of interest in a discussion and their intent to grasp the meaning of what is being communicated (Agrawal and Schmidt, 2003).…”

“…To demonstrate accounting educators' role, the model's strategies to minimise the impact of listening filters are symptomatic of attentive listening, a frequently used listening skill in accounting practice (Stone and Lightbody, 2012). Attentive listening is described by Morgan (1997) as the ability to interpret verbal and non-verbal information from another individual.…”

“…Non-verbal information transmits listeners' level of interest in a discussion and their intent to grasp the meaning of what is being communicated (Agrawal and Schmidt, 2003). Accountants interviewed by Stone and Lightbody (2012) claim to be adept at monitoring their clients' facial expressions for signs of confusion or disinterest and make appropriate adjustments to their communication approach to facilitate clients' understanding and interest.…”