(622) ACCOUNTING STUDENTS' CHOICE TO PURSUE A CAREER IN THE INDUSTRY OR ACADEMICS: LESSONS FROM SELECTED PRIVATE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

摘要

Career choice is one of the major decisions that a student has to make in tertiary institutions. Thischoice also cuts across a number of disciplines in business, social sciences and pure sciences. At thefinal year stage, a student of accounting consciously or sub-consciously makes up his/her mind on thekind of career to pursue after graduation. Three distinct areas from where an accounting studentmakes a choice are to work in the industry, gain academic relevance or to diversify completely fromaccounting. This makes it worthwhile to empirically examine the career choice of accounting studentsin tertiary institutions and the extent of difference to pursue a career in the industry or academics.These are the dominant issues in this study and they stem from the dearth in the Nigerian literature onstudies seeking to assess the career choice of accounting students. With the aid of a surveyinstrument (questionnaire), the objectives of this study were actualized. Copies of the questionnairewere made and the same administered to one hundred and fifty (150) accounting final year students intwo Private Universities in the South-West of Nigeria. The questionnaires were distributed equallyacross the two universities. Data was analyzed using factor analysis and t-test. Factor analysis wasused to decipher the factors influencing the choice of students to pursue a career in the industry oracademics. T-test was employed to examine whether a difference exists in the career choice of theaccounting students based on gender. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17was used to analyze the data collected from the respondents. The outcome that there is a wide gapbetween the choice of students to pursue an accounting career in the industry rather than inacademics makes this study recommend that there could be more incentives to encourage accountingstudents to balance their career by engaging with academics. The accounting professional bodiescould also encourage students to pursue postgraduate studies in accounting by sponsoring them.These steps could reduce the gap between accountants in the industry and academics.