What to Expect When Studying Accounting

Introduction

The introduction of this study, will discuss the background of the survey of factors influencingKolej Asa students in choosing Diploma in Accountancy Course as their major. The significant and objectives of the project, the limitation encountered during the investigation of this project.

Overview of Study

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Accountancy is the process of communicating financial information about a business entity to users such as shareholders and managers .The communication is generally in the form of financial statements that show in money terms the economic resources under the control of management; the art lies in selecting the information that is relevant to the user and is reliable. The principles of accountancy are applied to business entities in three divisions of practical art, named accounting, bookkeeping, and auditing.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) defines accountancy as "the art of recording, classifying, and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events which are, in part at least, of financial character, and interpreting the results thereof."

Accounting is thousands of years old; the earliest accounting records, which date back more than 7,000 years, were found in Mesopotamia (Assyrians). The people of that time relied on primitive accounting methods to record the growth of crops and herds. Accounting evolved, improving over the years and advancing as business advanced.

Early accounts served mainly to assist the memory of the businessperson and the audience for the account was the proprietor or record keeper alone. Cruder forms of accounting were inadequate for the problems created by a business entity involving multiple investors, so double-entry bookkeeping first emerged in northern Italy in the 14th century, where trading ventures began to require more capital than a single individual was able to invest.

The development of joint stock companies created wider audiences for accounts, as investors without firsthand knowledge of their operations relied on accounts to provide the requisite information. This development resulted in a split of accounting systems for internal (i.e. management accounting) and external (i.e. financial) purposes, and subsequently also in accounting and disclosure regulations and a growing need for independent attestation of external accounts by auditors.

Today, accounting is called "the language of business" because it is the vehicle for reporting financial information about a business entity to many different groups of people. Accounting more concentrates on reporting to people inside the business entity is called management accounting. It used to provide information to employees, managers, owner-managers and auditors. Management accounting is concerned primarily with providing a basis for making management or operating decisions.

Accounting that provides information to people outside the business entity is called financial accounting and provides information to present and potential shareholders, creditors such as banks or vendors, financial analysts, economists, and government agencies. Because these users have different needs, the presentation of financial accounts is very structured and subject to many more rules than management accounting. The body of rules that governs financial accounting in a given jurisdiction is called Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP.

Background of Study

Accounting is a significant subject in the middle of students. Essentially accounting process involves record keeping—recording, classifying, reporting and interpreting economic events. However accountingat the moment is somuch more. Currently, the accountant is an even more precious member of the corporate strategic team with involvement in the corporation’s planning, evaluating and forecasting of the future.

According to Malaysia Deputy Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib b TunRazak (Speech on The Occasion of the ICAEW Malaysia Achievers’ Ball, 2004) by the year 2020 in line to achieved residential country status it has been predictable that Malaysia needs 60,000 accountants. The figure now stands at 21,000.

All the way through Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW’s) hard work, and together with the Malaysian accountancy bodies, can show to students the charisma of an accounting profession and lend a hand to correct any misconceptions on the career.

For the Diploma Accountancy course in Kolej Asa, students are being exposed to the importance of current situation of our country. Students require to completing 7semester in order to gain their Diploma in Accountancy. Understanding students’ perceptions of accounting is a very significant first step in the effort to attract the best to the accounting profession. This paper aims to study the factors such as personal factors, reference group and job related factors that may possiblymanipulate Kolej Asa students in choosing accounting course as their foremost.

Problem Statement

Even though there are many opportunities created in the accounting profession, there are also many challenges the accounting profession has to contend with (Mladenovic, 2000; Parker, 2001). In today’s world accounting profession is facing one challenge that is rehabilitating the public perception of the accounting profession itself, especially in the aftermath of the many high-profile scandals in the United States involving corporate giants such as Enron, WorldCom and others.

Choosing a course to study after “Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia” (SPM) is not easy. On the one hand, it can be quite confusing due to the plethora of courses and institutions available to the student to choose from. On the other hand there are many pitfalls that a student should avoid in order to make the right choice (Loke, 2008). Several programs and marketing material are design by The American Institute of Certified PublicAccountants (AICPA) and some state societies to attract students to accounting.

According to AICPA research conducted in 2002, the number of graduates of accounting programs, undergraduate and graduate, declined by 21.3%, from 59,140 in 1990/1991 to 46,555 in 2000/2001. In Canada, the UK and the US the decline in quantity and or quality of students majoring in accounting and entering the profession has been an issue of concern for several decades, (Adams et al., 1994; Stice and Swain, 1997).

Recent evidence from The USA, the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada indicates that professional accountancy practice is becoming less attractive to accounting graduates and trainees from universities and colleges, and that professional accountancy firms are concerned about losing bright accounting candidates to other professions (Ahmed et al., 1997; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Felton et al., 1994; Marriot and Marriot, 2003).

This research intends to find the relationship regarding the factors that influence student’s choice in accounting course. According to Carolyn, Susan and Brian (2005) understanding students’ perceptions of accounting is an important first step in the effort to attract the best to the accounting profession. Many studies have been done at universities on the universities level for example research by Cohen and Hanon (1993), Ahmed et al. (1994) and Saeman et al. (1999).

Research Questions

Based on the previous discussion, research question is to help out the researcher to respond and clarify the problem statement. The research questions are:

1. Is there any significant relationship between “personal factors” and student’s choice of accounting course?
2. Is there any significant relationship between “reference group” and students choice of accounting course?
3. Is there any significant relationship between “job related factors” and students choice of accounting course?

Research Objectives

The objectives of this research are:

1. To investigate the relationship between personal factors and the choice of the Kolej Asa students’ in accounting course.
2. To investigate the relationship between reference group and the choice of the Kolej Asa students’ in accounting course.
3. To investigate the relationship between jobs related factors and the choice of the Kolej Asa students’ in accounting course.

Significant of the Study

Accounting profession is becoming less attractive to accounting graduates and trainees from universities and colleges, and that professional accountancy firms are concerned about losing bright accounting candidates to other professions. The misinformation about accounting effects students’ decisions in choosing accounting as a potential career or major. However, when students are exposed to more information about accounting, there is a significant increase in their interest in accounting (Saudagaran, 1996).

The AICPA and some state societies have introduced several programs and marketing materials designed to attract students to accounting. Employers and universities also have a stake in attracting students to accounting careers (Hardin al., 2000). Recruiting efforts should begin early and should emphasize the challenging nature of accounting work and provide specific information about starting salaries. Rather than avoiding discussion of the recent accounting scandals e.g. Enron, recruiters should considering using them as an illustration of the critical role accounting plays in our capital markets.

Students

A good starting place is to listen to high school students’ perceptions of theaccounting profession.In Malaysia, students have to make a decision in choosing a course to study afterSPM. Business studies has become one of the main courses offered in many tertiaryinstitutions be it public or private universities or colleges.

Students choosing a businesscourse will have to major in one the fields such as accountancy, finance, marketing,human resources or business administration. While there has been increasing effortsamong the universities and colleges in offering the courses that matches the students’qualifications and needs, very little research has been conducted on the factors thatactually influences the students’ choice.

Kolej Asa

This research will subsequently help those producers to know more about the opinion of accounting students on influences on accounting course provided in Kolej Asa.

Future Researcher

This research will also benefit future researcher sources of in information if they are in fasted to do the topic related with this study. They also can extend to the other factors that studied in this research.

Scope of the Study

Subject

This research is focus on the student’s influences factors on accountancy course in Kolej Asa.

Location

Kolej Asa in Rawang town has been chosen. The reason of choosing is, Rawang town area has more students compare to rural area.

Respondents

The student consists of accountancy course provided in Kolej Asa. The specific chosen sample for this survey is in Kolej Asa. In this survey there are 50 students from accountancy course were being chosen. This research is essentiallyfocused on students who study accountancy course.

Limitation

I do aware that my research is not possible to accomplish due availability of current resource. Besides that, shortage of time is the main constraint to me. In addition to that, the information that I obtain from secondary data might not be accurate. The subject area of my research is student’s satisfaction. Therefore, customer perception will not be included. As this research is conducted at Kolej Asa in Rawang, the result will not reflect the view of student in other state within Malaysia. Alongside, the college authorities are not co-operate enough, disallowed survey on their student.

Time

In my research, I realize that shortage of time is the main constraints to me due to the reason that we just provide 4 months to conduct the survey. With the given 4 month of time, it is actually very limited amount of time for me to collect data and report analysis. Therefore, due tom the reason above with lacking of time, I had to settle this research for non-random sample of population.

Cost

By conducting this survey, we realize that the semester holiday of Kolej Asa will be factor that will be the factor that will affect this research. From this, we know that semester holiday of Kolej Asa is different from other College. Therefore, it is very hard to estimate the holiday of Kolej Asa and due to this research, I have to waste some cost in order to prepare my research as well as some expenses in order to do the questionnaire papers to conduct my survey.

Respondent

The respondents are the student study in Kolej Asa at Rawang. Therefore, this research is conducted student at Kolej Asa; Rawang town such as other colleges will not be the respondent of the research.

Conclusion

The chapter 1 is the introduction to the reader on the topic of my research. It started out with a general introduction about the intended study before deductively moving towards narrowing down the research scope. I have given a brief introduction about accounting and the factors influencing them. Besides that, I had identified the subject area of my study: student’s preferences towards in accounting course. Further, problem faced by the accounting course have been clearly stated and identified in the problem statement section.

I had list out 3 research questions related to this research and subsequently the research objective to the research question. Significant of the study have been clearly mentioned in this chapter in which this research will benefit the students, Kolej Asa and future researchers. This study will be specified on the students influencing in accounting course.

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