The Influence on Ethical Thinking Toward Effective Accounting Education

Abstract: The prior empirical researches indicate the significance of accounting education in the higher institution. Thomas (2010) states the effect of accounting education for making decision of the earlier year business students in the university. Berman (1990) emphasized how the engagement of teachers to develop basic social skills of students is. Saito & McLeod (2016) examined how significant for first-year or second-year American students to acknowledge social consciousness and indicated that students’ social consciousness such as respect, belonging, and leadership, affect their goal setting to learn accounting. The mission of accounting education is to foster future accounting professionals with competencies of critical and ethical thinking. This paper focuses on what kind of factors to influence on good ethical mind and attitude for students. The statistical analysis using the questionnaire gives some findings as follows; First, the more acquired for generic skills students are, the more ethical thinking the students oriented to. Second, some influences of basic accounting skills and usefulness of learning accounting on students’ ethical thinking were not found. Third, curiosity of corporate performance and management that students have, make the positive effect related to their ethical thinking.

Key words: ethical thinking; career building; accounting professionals; accounting education; curriculum development

JEL code: M41, M49