The Teaching of Ethics in Undergraduate Accounting Programmes: The Students' Perspective

Abstract

This paper solicits the views of students in order to assess the goals and effectiveness of the teaching of ethics in undergraduate Accounting programmes. Using a survey and interviews, the opinions of second-year undergraduate students at a UK university were obtained. Their perception of the aims and importance of ethics and their preferred means of teaching delivery are established. The results appear to show that students regard ethics teaching as being important to them and that a stand-alone ethics course is preferred to integrated teaching across the curriculum. In particular, students describe the benefits of a compartmentalised approach to their learning with ethics 'all in one place'. Possible reasons for students' choices are given and discussed and, from the level of importance attributed to ethics learning, it is concluded that ethics should be treated as part of a wider employability agenda for students, to help them in their future careers.

Ética profissional e estudantes de contabilidade: análise das variáveis intervenientes

“…Educational institutions need a framework of values and ethical reasoning in specific disciplines, such as ethics in accounting, preparing students to be professionals with the capacity to make ethical decisions in the business world (PROCARIO-FOLEY and MCLAUGHLIN, 2003BERNARDI and BEAN, 2006, GRAHAM, 2012. According to Rao, Friedman and Cox (2009), despite the increase in the efforts made in the literature on ethics education, its implementation in educational institutions is not seen from this angle.…”

“…The teaching of ethics in university curricula presents at least two distinct views among researchers, students and professionals (RAO, FRIEDMAN and COX, 2009): a) teaching influences ethical conduct (BERNARDI and BEAN, 2006;PROCARIO-FOLEY and MCLAUGHLIN, 2003;O'LEARY, 2012); and b) does not influence the ethical conduct of the professional future (GUNDERSEN, CAPOZOLLI and RAJAMMA, 2008). In this sense, Bernardi and Bean (2006) and Graham (2012) defend the need for a deeper and broader ethical education rather than distinguishing the right and wrong acquired in the individual's childhood, because, as environments change over time , personal values can also be changed.…”

Ethics Education in the Australian Accounting Curriculum: A Longitudinal Study Examining Barriers and Enablers

“…In spite of evidence demonstrating student support for the teaching of ethics (Graham, 2012), the issue addressed here is why ethics is still not taught in a comprehensive way in the accounting curriculum. An extensive review of the literature highlights the following limitations that potentially constrain the incorporation of ethics education into the accounting curriculum: the inability to change moral standards; inadequately trained staff; struggle for academic legitimacy; limited curriculum space in an overcrowded degree; and insufficient reference material.…”

Business Ethics as a Sustainability Challenge: Higher Education Implications

“…The second and third questionnaire sections were adapted from Adkins and Radtke's scale [32]. That scale was based on earlier proposals by Callahan [57] and Loeb [10], and has been also used in other studies on accounting ethics education (e.g., [14,31,58]). A seven-point Likert scale was used in the second and third sections, from a rating of 1 meaning "important" to a rating of 7 meaning "unimportant".…”

“…Research has so far illustrated that management students deem ethics courses as relevant [14,31,32,35]. The importance of considering the perspectives of three communities involvedscholars, accounting professionals, and students-has been highlighted [36].…”