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Communication researchers have observed that students will avoid majors that require the use of certain skills where the individual exhibits a high level of apprehension toward those skills. Historically, accounting has been perceived as requiring more math skills and fewer communication skills than other business majors so accounting has typically attracted students with low math apprehension and high communication (written and oral) apprehension. The current study investigates whether business students' perceptions across business majors regarding the level of mathematics, writing, and oral communication skills required for accounting reflect the recent changes in pedagogy and curriculum content for the accounting major.

The results indicate that the perception of skills required to be an accounting major by students in other business majors (more math and less communication) is different from the perception of accounting majors. On the other hand, accounting majors' perceptions of the skills needed to be in an alternative business major is generally similar to students in the respective major. These observations may lead to the interpretation that accounting majors have gotten the word that professional expectations of accountants involve substantial communication skill while that message has apparently not been shared with students who elect to major in other business fields.

To provide accounting practitioners and educators some of the reasons for the decreasing trend of students majoring in accounting and describe some of the activities that can be undertaken by accounting educators and practitioners to reverse the trend.

A range of published (1995‐2005) publications, which aim to show the reasons for the decreasing trend of students majoring in accounting, are reviewed. A study was conducted at a regional US university identifying – when student made the decision to major in accounting; the influence accounting instructors had on their decision to major in accounting; and the influence of the courses Managerial and Financial Accounting on their decision to major in accounting.

The majority of students majoring in accounting decide their major prior to their first university accounting course. A significant percentage of accounting majors rate accounting instructors as having no or minimal influence on their decision to major in accounting. A majority of students rate the Managerial and Financial Accounting courses as significantly impacting their decision to major in accounting.

This paper identifies the importance of accounting practitioners and educators working together to more actively recruit students to major in accounting. The paper provides suggestions for accounting practitioners and educators to become more active in recruiting students to major in accounting.

This study investigates the determinants of students’ intention to major in accounting (IMA) in pre-recessionary, recessionary, and post-recessionary time periods. By examining four factors (perceived professional ethics (PE), job market consideration (JMC), social influence (SI), and self-efficacy (SE)) in accordance with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we address two primary research questions. The first question concerns whether the four factors are related to students’ IMA before, during, and after the recession. The second deals with whether there is a shift in the relative importance of the factors between the pre-recessionary, recessionary, and post-recessionary periods. We use structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis of structural invariance to analyze these issues. The results show that all four factors have significant structural weights in each period, with the exception of perceived PE in the pre-recessionary period. In terms of students’ IMA over the three periods, perceived PE, JMC, and SI become factors of greater importance during the recessionary and post-recessionary periods, while SE decreases in relative importance.

We discuss an accounting fair designed to foster a more favorable perception of the accounting profession and to identify accounting career opportunities, thereby increasing students’ interest in the accounting major. The fair is a unique model that provides students with accurate information about the accounting profession, rather than to recruit firm employees. The model can be tailored to meet other objectives of accounting departments, such as, to increase diversity of students selecting the major, to increase the quality of students in the major, or other objectives a department might deem appropriate.

We studied the effects of the fair on students’ perceptions of the accounting profession and interest in the accounting major, using pre- and post-accounting fair surveys. Our statistical results indicate the accounting fair was successful in fostering a more favorable perception of the accounting profession. As a result, students’ interest in the accounting major increased, which is consistent with the actual increase in the number of accounting majors at our institution since implementing the fair. Similarly, by employing a fair similar to ours, the achievement of other departmental objectives should result from fostering a more favorable perception of the accounting profession.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence the course major decisions of accounting and non-accounting students.

A set of questionnaires was developed and administered to 550 undergraduate business students from the University of Ghana Business School. Statistical tests were conducted to examine the mean differences of students’ views on the factors that influence course major selection. Logistic regression analysis was employed to investigate the factors that influence the course major selection of students.

The results demonstrate that students’ confidence in their academic strength and abilities to manage academic work are good predictors of their course major decisions. Also, students who major in accounting are driven more by self-interest, while non-accounting students are largely motivated by extrinsic interest. Moreover, students’ academic performances were found to be influential on their course major decisions.

This study relied on the views of students from only one university in Ghana, which, in some respect, limits the extent of generalization of the findings.

The paper provides some useful insights into the factors that inspire students to major in accounting. As a means of addressing the supply deficit of accountants globally, policymakers should find the results useful in developing the appropriate strategy that will attract students to the accounting field.

The study provides new insights into the course major selection discourse from a developing-country perspective.

In recent years there has been a decrease in the proportion of commerce students taking an accounting major in Australia (Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, 2001), resulting in a greater proportion of first year accounting classes comprising non‐accounting majors. At our institution we felt that an approach based on “active learning” strategies as suggested by the Albrecht and Sack Report (2000) was appropriate for non‐accounting majors. This was primarily to instil a greater enthusiasm for and interest in accounting than had been evident from our experience with these students in the past. In the course evaluations the non‐accounting majors were positive about their learning experiences. In reviewing the students’ assessment performance we found that the non‐accounting majors actually performed better than the accounting majors in one of the five assessment components – the final exam. These findings suggest that the active learning approach may be beneficial to all accounting students.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of factors affecting students’ choice of accounting as a study major in Hong Kong.

Multinomial logistic regression and Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling (HGLM) are used to analyze the survey data for the level one and level two data, which is the first time such an approach has been used in the literature. Twenty semi‐structured interviews are conducted.

Results reveal that parental influence has the highest explanatory power among all three groups of students (i.e. accounting major, accounting minor, and other majors). This finding reflects the inculcation in students of the Confucian cultural norms ingrained in Chinese societies. Intrinsic interest is the second most important influencing factor reported by students. Two factors, “intrinsic interest” (attitude towards the behavior) and “parental influence” (subjective norm) in the multinomial logistic regressions and HGLM make significant contributions to predicting a student's decision to major in accounting for the level one (undergraduate) and level two model (master's students). The results support the theory of reasoned action (TRA) model. “First accounting course,” “high school accounting,” and “financial rewards” are not found to be factors influencing the decision to major in accounting, in contrast to the findings of the literature prior to the Enron scandal. Females are more likely to choose accounting as a major or minor than are males in the level one and level two models.

The findings indicate that Hong Kong universities and the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) need to promote accounting to improve the current negative image of the profession to attract more bright students, who traditionally might choose a non‐accounting major.

The findings of this study extend the application of the TRA model to the accounting profession. Besides, results provide insights for employers to better understand the mindsets of potential accounting graduates.

For nearly two decades, accounting educators have debated whether to continue with a preparer approach, or adopt a user perspective, or a blended model in the introductory financial accounting course. We examine the extent to which accounting programs have chosen to employ each approach, the factors that influenced their selection, as well as the relative importance of each factor. We also explore institutional and course characteristics associated with the choice of instructional method.

Our results indicate that one-third of programs employ the user perspective, and one-fifth the traditional preparer approach, while nearly half use a blend of the two. Programs using the preparer approach tend to focus on the accounting major (e.g., performance and career goals). In contrast, user approach institutions appear to emphasize performance issues and career paths of non-accounting majors.

Using data from a mid-west public university, this study examines the determinants of students’ repeating the first college-level accounting course. More than 600 students are included in the study. The results show that three factors (cumulative college grade point average, intention to major in accounting, and students’ motivation and determination) are significant in explaining students’ repeating of the course. The study provides evidence that the repeating students are more likely to be the students with prior high school accounting education. The study identifies that repeating is not due to a student failing the course but rather that repeating is more likely to be an individual decision when the student is not satisfied with the grade he/she gets, either because he/she self-screens out of business school, or decides to repeat the course to stay in their business major. Finally, the study shows that there is little evidence of grade improvement when a student repeats the first college-level accounting course.