First year students’ perceptions
A good number of studies have also indicated that the accounting stereotypes developed
in secondary schools continues in the first years of studying accounting. Mladenovic (2000)
found that students in introductory accounting course perceived accounting as primarily
numerical, objective and non-controversial and accountants having little to do with creative
judgment and communication skills. Jackling (2002) reported that the majority of students
studying first year core units in accounting had negative perceptions of the accounting
profession. Christensen (2004) found that feedback from first year experience left students with a
view that accounting was to be avoided because of the risk of becoming brain impaired, was as
boring as watching paint dry and that accountants “would not brook any variation to centuries of
mindless rituals” (p119). Baxter and Kavanagh (2008) study on the students reading for the firstyear
undergraduate introductory accounting course at two Australian Universities concluded that
the majority of students had a restrictive traditional view of accountants and the accounting