Writing - The Development of a Necessary Professional Skill

Abstract

Purpose. This paper sets out to further evaluate the ability of university level students to write and to suggest some strategies to address this area. Design/methodology/approach. An online questionnaire was circulated to 808 accounting academics in Australian universities of which 162 useable responses were received. These responses were followed up with semi-structured interviews of a smaller group of eight academics from five different universities to further explore key issues raised in the questionnaire. Findings. Accounting academics believe that students are not prepared to study accounting at university level with deficiencies in several areas, where writing and communication is one such shortfall. Implications. The research brings to the fore the poor writing ability of university accounting students and lays stress on the need to train and more clearly guide the development of these business related skills. Training may require curriculum adjustment to accommodate additional courses of study. Originality. There is a paucity of material related to the writing skills of accounting and business students and this paper attempts to assist in bridging this gap. Limitations. The study needs to be replicated in other settings.