Attitudes on accounting subgroups
To get more insights into student’s attitudes towards different sections of accounting, this study also compared the attitudes of commencing and completing students on the four accounting subgroups. Marriott and Marriott (2003) grouped accounting attitude statements into (a) Accounting as a Career, (b) Accounting as a discipline, (c) Accounting as a profession and (d) Accounting as a Group Activity. Under accounting as a career they put “I would enjoy being an accountant”; “Accountants find little satisfaction in their work” and “Accountants are boring people”. Under accounting as a discipline fall “Accounting is interesting”; “I like accounting”; “Accounting is just a lot of rule-memorizing”; and “Accounting is a lot of fixed rules; it doesn't involve conceptual skills or judgment”; Accounting as a profession is comprised of “My peers would think I made a good career decision if I became an accountant”; “My family would like me to become an accountant”; “The accounting profession is well-respected”; “Accounting is a profession, on par with medicine and law”; and “Being an accountant has a lot of prestige”. Accounting as a Group Activity is made up of “Professionally-qualified accountants interact with lots of people”; “Accountants are number-crunchers; they seldom work with people”, and “Accountants work alone more than work with people.
The average attitude scores on accounting as a career, a discipline and a group of activity among the first year and fourth year students portrayed a diminishing trend from 8.26 to 7.48, 7.36 to 6.85 and 6.53 to 6.05 respectively. However, the attitude scores towards accounting as a profession was greater for senior students than that of junior students reflecting a rise of a slight increase of 0.15 from 7.76 to 7.91. As students come closer to the world of work are more accepting of the career they chose.