CONCLUSION
The study compared the accounting students’ attitude towards accounting profession
between first year and fourth year students as well as between genders. The first year accounting
students have a reasonably positive attitude towards the accounting programme, supporting the
findings of Saudagaran (1996) that students begin with positive perceptions of accounting. There
is a decline in attitude score when compared to the fourth year students but the scores remain
positive. Both first year and fourth year students perceive the accounting profession to be wellrespected.
Fourth year students find accountants to have little satisfaction in their work and the
accounting field less interesting as compared to the first year students. Senior students however
have a more positive attitude towards accounting as a profession. They also regard accountants
as having a lot of prestige, the accounting profession well-respected and at par with medicine and
law.