A Comparison Of Educators And CPA Practitioners Views On Communication Training In The Accounting Curriculum

Abstract

Educators, practitioners and others have criticized the universities for not providing adequate communication training to their accounting students.  Gingras (1987) conducted a survey of CPAs concerning the importance and overage of written communication skills in business schools.  This study compares the perceptions of educators and CPAs regarding the importance of written communication skills to a CPA, the coverage of written communication skills in the accounting curriculum and the relative importance of a list of writing activities performed by a CPA.  The focus groups include university professors, and staff assistants, senior, managers and partners of public accounting firms.  The responses analyzed using the ANOVA technique, indicate that coverage of communication skills is relatively low and most accounting students take only one writing course in their college curriculum.  Educators and practitioners recommend general writing related courses as the appropriate instruction in the accounting curriculum.  Many respondents believe that to be successful in the profession, accounting students should increase their writing skills by studying grammar, punctuation and spelling and by taking more courses than are currently required in most business curricula.  In addition, significant differences between educators’ and CPAs’ responses are analyzed and discussed.